The non-negligible contribution of shallow injection wells on the triggering of the Mw 5.0 Mentone earthquake via coupled poroelastic stress perturbations

Occurred in the Delaware Basin, western Texas, near the town of Mentone, the Mw 5.0 Mentone earthquake is one of the largest induced earthquakes in the central US. Within 25 km of the epicenter, there are a few deep injection wells to the northwest injecting in the high permeable limestone layer at about 22 km averagely, as well as a lot of shallow wells injecting in the upper high permeable sandstone layer at around 18 km averagely. Between the shallow sandstone and deep limestone layers is a thick shale layer with low permeability, which excludes the possibility of downward percolation of the injected fluid in the shallow injection layer. However, the cumulative injection volume of shallow injection wells is about five times as much as that of deep injection wells. Motivated by this, we investigate whether the shallow injection wells may play a role in triggering the Mw 5.0 Mentone earthquake through the injection-induced coupled poroelastic stress perturbations. We first perform focal mechanism inversion and earthquake relocation with the Cut and Paste (CAP) and hypoDD methods, respectively, to constrain the fault plane on which the Mw 5.0 event occurred. A south-facing fault plane with strike/dip of 81^o/52^o is successfully fitted. We then calculate the change of the Coulomb failure stress (ΔCFS) caused by the shallow injection wells at the mainshock location based on the linear fully coupled poroelastic stress model. The calculated ΔCFS of shallow injection wells is approximately 20 kPa and it is mostly contributed by the change in coupled poroelastic stress. Based on findings from other studies, this value of ΔCFS is sufficient in reactivating faults that are well aligned with the local stress field. Since we only account for about half of the total injection volume from the shallow wells in the calculation, we also hypothesize that the actual perturbations caused by shallow injection wells via the coupled poroelastic stress change would be more prominent. Our result reveals the vital role of injection-induced coupled poroelastic stress in triggering seismicity, especially in low permeable geologic settings.