Earth and Environmental Sciences Area Logo Earth and Environmental Sciences Area Logo
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Logo
Menu
  • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Organizational Charts
    • Virtual Tours
    • EESA Strategic Vision
  • Our People
    • A-Z People
    • Alumni Network
    • Area Offices
    • Committees
    • Directors
    • IDEA Working Group
    • Paul A. Witherspoon
    • Postdocs & Early Careers
    • Search by Expertise
  • Careers & Opportunities
    • Careers
    • Intern Pilot w/CSUEB
    • Mentorship Program
    • Recognition & Funding Opps
    • EESA Mini Grants
    • S&E Metrics for Performance and Promotion
    • Student Opportunities
    • Supervisor EnRichment (SupER) Program
    • Promotion Metrics (Scientific)
  • Research
    • Area-Wide Program Domain
      • Earth AI & Data
    • Our Divisions
    • Climate & Ecosystem Sciences Division
      • Environmental & Biological Systems Science
        • Programs
        • Environmental Remediation & Water Resources
        • Ecosystems Biology Program
        • Bioenergy
      • Biosphere-Atmosphere Interactions
        • Programs
        • Climate Modeling
        • Atmospheric System Research
        • Terrestrial Ecosystem Science
      • Climate & Atmosphere Processes
        • Programs
        • Climate Modeling
        • Atmospheric System Research
      • Earth Systems & Society
        • Programs
        • Climate Modeling
    • Energy Geosciences Division
      • Discovery Geosciences
        • Programs
        • Basic Energy Sciences (BES) Geophysics
        • Basic Energy Sciences (BES) Geochemistry
        • Basic Energy Sciences (BES) Isotope
      • Energy Resources and Carbon Management
        • Programs
        • Carbon Removal & Mineralization Program
        • Carbon Storage Program
        • Geothermal Systems
        • Hydrocarbon Science
        • Nuclear Energy & Waste
      • Resilient Energy, Water & Infrastructure
        • Programs
        • Water-Energy
        • Critical Infrastructure
        • Environmental Resilience
        • Grid-Scale Subsurface Energy Storage
        • National Alliance for Water Innovation (NAWI)
    • Projects
    • Research at a Glance
    • Publication Lists
    • Centers and Resources
    • Technologies & National User Programs
  • Departments
    • Climate Sciences
    • Ecology
    • Geochemistry
    • Geophysics
    • Hydrogeology
    • Operations
  • News & Events
    • News
    • Events
    • Earth & Environment Newsletter
  • Intranet
  • Safety
    • EESA Safety
  • FoW
  • Search

  • all
  • people
  • events
  • posts
  • pages
  • projects
  • publications

Discovery Geosciences

Basic Energy Sciences (BES) Geophysics

More »
  • Highlights
Highlights

Understanding the impact of fluids injected into the subsurface is essential for a host of activities that have material benefits for society. The long-term mission of the BES Geophysics Program is to improve our ability to monitor and image in space and time where injected fluids migrate and what alterations they make to the Earth’s subsurface.

Program Overview

Understanding the impact of fluids injected into the subsurface is essential for a host of activities that have material benefits for society. For example, the extraction of geothermal energy, development of unconventional hydrocarbon resources, sequestration of carbon dioxide (CO2), clean-up of contaminated groundwater and storage of various types of fluids all require fluid injection into diverse types of subsurface systems. The long-term mission of the BES Geophysics Program at Berkeley Lab’s Energy Geosciences Division is to improve our ability to monitor and image in space and time where injected fluids migrate and what alterations they make to the Earth’s subsurface. We are resolving the numerous basic-science challenges involved with using different types of time-lapse geophysical data, including seismic, electromagnetic signals and strain information, to inform about the time-lapse changes to the subsurface.

Invading fluids change material properties through several mechanisms:

  • the replacement of one fluid type with another alters any material property that depends on the fluid properties or on the emergent fluid structures (e.g., electrical conductivity, seismic velocity, seismic attenuation);
  • the fluid pressure fronts alter the stress balance in the subsurface and can induce fracture and/or slip that results in seismicity that can be measured to track the front advancement; and
  • such induced damage also alters the geophysical, hydrogeological and mechanical properties of the subsurface.

The basic-science questions are in how to model and understand the way that injected fluids alter rock properties, to simulate flow (miscible and immiscible) and transport of solute in highly heterogeneous materials and to simulate both the arrival of fluid-damage and how such damage alters rock properties. The approach in each of these cases is to develop new theoretical models that are informed and constrained by laboratory experiments. Further, new imaging techniques are developed that allow time-lapse geophysical data to be inverted to obtain the key material properties used in the forward-modeling simulators of the alteration process.

A Novel Laboratory Experiment

This novel laboratory experiment allows for the visualization of a fluid-induced fracture event as well as where the locally distributed cracking (acoustic emissions) takes place.

Optical images of fluid-induced fracture growth (bottom panels) measured in the lab by Seiji Nakagawa as correlated with acoustic emission (AE) locations determined from concurrent seismic measurements (top panel). The injected fluid is optically luminescent (red) and is injected into a pre-fractured glass sample at the center (as indicated by the red dot on the left). Many AE events occur far away from the injected fluid and are triggered by stress changes provoked by the fluid injection.

Optical images of fluid-induced fracture growth (bottom panels) measured in the lab by Seiji Nakagawa as correlated with acoustic emission (AE) locations determined from concurrent seismic measurements (top panel). The injected fluid is optically luminescent (red) and is injected into a pre-fractured glass sample at the center (as indicated by the red dot on the left). Many AE events occur far away from the injected fluid and are triggered by stress changes provoked by the fluid injection.

Featured Projects

Program Contacts

Private: Steven R. Pride
Staff Scientist

Reed Helgens
Program Operations Analyst

News & Events

Chun Chang Places Second in Annual Berkeley Lab Pitch Competition

January 18, 2023

Commercializing Berkeley Lab inventions is an important part of the Lab’s mission, and one that requires strong communication skills. For example, Lab inventors need to be able to pitch their ideas to external partners and potential funders.  The annual Berkeley Lab Pitch Competition occurred on October 27, 2022 and is a part of an entrepreneurship…

EESA Scientists Collaborate With Universities to bring Environmental Science Research Opportunities and Training to Students Underrepresented in STEM

January 13, 2023

  EESA researchers are collaborators in three of the 41 projects awarded in December by DOE through its Reaching a New Energy Sciences Workforce (RENEW) initiative.  RENEW aims to build foundations for research at institutions that have been historically underrepresented in the Office of Science (SC) research portfolio. The initiative provides opportunities for undergraduate and…

Berkeley Lab Hosts Successful CouFrac 2022 Conference

November 29, 2022

The 3rd International Conference on Coupled Processes in Fractured Geological Media: Observation, Modeling, and Application (CouFrac 2022) took place at Berkeley Lab and online everywhere else on November 14-16. Berkeley Lab Research Scientist Mengsu Hu led the conference along with Berkeley Lab Senior Scientists Carl Steefel and Jonny Rutqvist to explore the exciting new advances…

Cracking the Secrets to Earthquake Safety, One Shake Simulation at a Time

This article first appeared at https://newscenter.lbl.gov/. A new experimental capability, designed to replicate realistic earthquakes in the laboratory, paired with the world’s fastest supercomputers, will help lead to resilient buildings and infrastructure across the U.S. To make sure our buildings and infrastructure are earthquake-safe, we must understand how seismic activity affects different structures. Miniature models…

Christophe Tournassat Honored by Clay Minerals Society

November 14, 2022

Christophe Tournassat, currently an EESA visiting faculty scientist in the Energy Geosciences Division, has been named by the Clay Minerals Society to receive the Marion L. and Christie M. Jackson Mid-Career Clay Scientist Award for his contributions to the clay mineralogy field. He will receive the award during the 60th anniversary of the Clay Mineral…

EESA Geophysicists Explore Landslide Hazard Using Novel Remote-Sensing Approach

October 17, 2022

Torrential rains in Venezuela early last week provoked a devastating landslide, adding to the deluge of stunning climatic events of the past month. With locations around the globe receiving larger amounts of intense rainfall over shorter periods of time under climate change, bigger, costlier landslides that directly impact infrastructure have become more frequent–and urbanization exacerbates…

  • Our People
    • Area Offices
    • Committees
    • Directors
    • Organizational Charts
    • Postdocs
    • Staff Only
    • Search by Expertise
  • Departments
    • Climate Sciences
    • Ecology
    • Geochemistry
    • Geophysics
    • Hydrogeology
  • Research
    • Climate & Ecosystem Sciences Division
    • Energy Geosciences Division
    • Program Domains
      • Programs
    • Projects
  • Contact
    • 510 486 6455
    • eesawebmaster@lbl.gov
    • Our Identity

Earth and Environmental Sciences Area Logo DOE Earth and Environmental Sciences Area Logo UC

A U.S. Department of Energy National Laboratory Managed by the University of California

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory · Earth and Environmental Sciences Area · Privacy & Security Notice