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Detection of induced seismicity due to oil and gas extraction in the Northern Gulf of Mexico, USA

Thesis advisor: John E. Ebel / Drilling operations and extraction of oil and gas (O&G) may lead to subsurface slumping or compression of sediments due to reduced vertical principal stress which may lead to small earthquakes at the drilling site. O&G extraction is common in the northern Gulf of Mexico (NGM) and only thirty-five earthquakes of magnitudes between 2.3 and 6.0 have been recorded in the area from 1974 to the present. The purpose of this research is to detect more earthquakes using stacks of seismic data from the Transportable USArray (TA) from 2011 to 2013, and determine the spatiotemporal relationship between the detected earthquakes and O&G extraction. Five new small offshore earthquakes, that may be associated with the offshore O&G production, have been detected in the data. Spatial correlation of the epicenters with offshore drilling sites shows that the earthquakes may be due to the O&G extraction. / Thesis (MS) — Boston College, 2015. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Earth and Environmental Sciences.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:BOSTON/oai:dlib.bc.edu:bc-ir_104632
Date January 2015
CreatorsFadugba, Oluwaseun Idowu
PublisherBoston College
Source SetsBoston College
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeText, thesis
Formatelectronic, application/pdf
RightsCopyright is held by the author, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise noted.

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