IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v441y2006i7097d10.1038_nature04798.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Seismic waves increase permeability

Author

Listed:
  • Jean E. Elkhoury

    (University of California)

  • Emily E. Brodsky

    (University of California)

  • Duncan C. Agnew

    (University of California)

Abstract

Permeability: all shook up As well as having obvious effects on people, buildings and scenery, the shaking caused by earthquakes can alter the permeability of the Earth's crust. Permeability is important as it controls the underground movement of fluids, yet it is rarely measured continuously over long periods. A record of water-well levels in Southern California over a 20-year period, in which time seven earthquakes occurred, indicates that seismicity causes a marked increase in permeability: in two of the wells permeability increased by as much as a factor of 3. The data have potentially far-reaching consequences for hydrological monitoring, reservoir engineering and earthquake physics. For instance, the observed tripling of permeability hints at a method for active permeability enhancement in oil and gas reservoirs.

Suggested Citation

  • Jean E. Elkhoury & Emily E. Brodsky & Duncan C. Agnew, 2006. "Seismic waves increase permeability," Nature, Nature, vol. 441(7097), pages 1135-1138, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:441:y:2006:i:7097:d:10.1038_nature04798
    DOI: 10.1038/nature04798
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature04798
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/nature04798?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cadini, F. & De Sanctis, J. & Bertoli, I. & Zio, E., 2013. "Monte Carlo simulation of radionuclide migration in fractured rock for the performance assessment of radioactive waste repositories," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 241-247.
    2. Evgenii V. Kozhevnikov & Mikhail S. Turbakov & Evgenii A. Gladkikh & Evgenii P. Riabokon & Vladimir V. Poplygin & Mikhail A. Guzev & Chengzhi Qi & Artem A. Kunitskikh, 2022. "Colloid Migration as a Reason for Porous Sandstone Permeability Degradation during Coreflooding," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(8), pages 1-17, April.
    3. Eugenio Sanz & Ignacio Menéndez Pidal & José Ignacio Escavy & Joaquin Sanz de Ojeda, 2020. "Hydrogeological Changes along a Fault Zone Caused by Earthquakes in the Moncayo Massif (Iberian Chain, Spain)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(21), pages 1-9, October.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:441:y:2006:i:7097:d:10.1038_nature04798. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.