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Discovery Geosciences

Basic Energy Sciences (BES) Geophysics

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  • 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

Steven R. Pride
Staff Scientist

Reed Helgens
Program Operations Analyst

News & Events

EESA Research Scientist Selected for NAE 2022 U.S. Frontiers of Engineering Symposium

May 23, 2022

Mengsu Hu, an EESA research scientist, was selected to participate in the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) U.S. Frontiers of Engineering symposium in September. For more than 25 years, the NAE has identified the best and brightest early-career engineers from large and small companies, research universities, and government laboratories to discuss their leading-edge research and…

EESA Experts Participate in National Energy Storage Summit

March 29, 2022

To support the nation’s transition to renewable energy and the growing demand for battery production, there is an accelerating urgency for new ideas and innovative solutions. From March 8-9, Berkeley Lab hosted a National Energy Storage Summit to connect national and regional leaders across industries, government, and communities to encourage collaboration on tackling the challenges…

Carol Chien Makes Impact as Co-Founder of Asian Pacific Islander Employee Resource Group

February 24, 2022

As Programs Operational Analyst in the Energy Geosciences Division and co-founder of the Asian Pacific Islander Employee Resource Group (API ERG), Carol Chien’s efforts have been impactful in both EESA and Berkeley Lab’s employee community.  The API ERG is a group dedicated to help API employees reach their full potential by establishing a support system,…

Remote Autonomous Monitoring Developed at the GMF Makes the Difference in Carbon Storage Investigations

Back in November 2020 when field research worldwide had more or less grounded to a halt due to COVID related travel restrictions, one team of EESA geoscientists was able to carry through with a key field investigation–and a complicated one at that. Conducted in underground rock laboratories, their work involves activating a geological fault to…

Quantifying California’s Lithium Valley: Can It Power Our EV Revolution?

February 22, 2022

This article appeared first at newscenter.lbl.gov The Salton Sea geothermal field in California potentially holds enough lithium to meet all of America’s domestic battery needs, with even enough left over to export some of it. But how much of that lithium can be extracted in a sustainable and environmentally friendly way? And how long will the…

National Labs Support Safe Nuclear Waste Disposal by Studying Safety Material for Underground Sites

January 19, 2022

When it comes to nuclear power, the uranium at the heart of fuel rods is also this power source’s Achilles’ heel.  When power plants shut down or the fuel rods in nuclear reactors become inefficient, the high-level nuclear waste resulting from the spent fuel created from running these plants could stay radioactive for thousands of years.…

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