Discovery Geosciences

Basic Energy Sciences (BES) Geophysics

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

News & Events

Three EESA scientists receive DOE Early Career Research Awards

August 10, 2017

Three Earth and Environmental Sciences Area (EESA) scientists receive the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science Early Career Research Award for 2017. Congratulations to Nick Bouskill, Charlie Koven, and Neslihan Tas Baas.

EESA Develops New Approach to Restock California’s Groundwater via Almond Orchards, Vineyards

August 3, 2017

Groundwater—the water stored underneath the Earth’s surface between the cracks and spaces in soil, sand, and bedrock—is essential for the California residents and farmers who rely on it for up to 46 percent of their annual water use. Yet during the 2012-2017 drought, the state’s surface water supply was not sufficient to meet demand, resulting in excess groundwater pumping that caused land subsidence of up to 13 inches in some parts of the San Joaquin Valley.

Now a team of scientists at Berkeley Lab’s Earth & Environmental Sciences Area are working with farmers and partners like the Almond Board of California and UC Davis to test on-farm banking, a new approach that has the potential to manage groundwater more sustainably. It’s an improvement on the age-old method of groundwater recharge, the process of replenishing aquifers by infiltrating water from the surface into shallow aquifers.

“On-farm banking has the promise of making the most productive use of the greatest amount of land possible while increasing the reliability and resiliency of California’s groundwater supply,” says EESA scientist Peter Nico, a soil and environmental biogeochemist.

EESA Scientist Builds Cross-Border Collaborations for Geothermal Research

August 1, 2017

Thirty-five years ago, Berkeley Lab’s Earth & Environmental Sciences Area (EESA) scientist Patrick Dobson began his career as a graduate student by conducting field mapping, collecting fluid samples, and learning the ropes from local scientists at the Los Azufres geothermal field in Michoacán, Mexico. During his summer doing field work in Mexico, he met Berkeley Lab’s Marcelo Lippmann, who was attending a symposium on the Cerro Prieto geothermal field, the subject of a collaborative research project between the Lab (funded by the U.S. Department of Energy) and the Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE), Mexico’s state-owned utility.

Now—after decades of leading geothermal exploration projects all over the world, including Indonesia, Central America, and South America— Dobson’s work has come full circle.

Earlier this year, he spent two weeks in Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico as a Fulbright Specialist in geothermal research. Hosted by the Center for Scientific Investigation and Higher Education in Ensenada (CICESE), one of the main hubs for geothermal work in the country, Dobson met with Mexican researchers to share knowledge, identify areas of mutual interest, and explore potential areas of collaboration.

Berkeley Lab Scientists Brief California Science Advisory Panel for Food and Agriculture

July 28, 2017

As two-thirds of the fruits and nuts—and over a third of the vegetables—produced in the United States are grown in California, it’s crucial that the Golden State cultivate healthy soils that are resilient to stresses such as climate change, drought, and groundwater overuse. Now scientists at Berkeley Lab’s Earth & Environmental Sciences Area (EESA) and Biosciences Area are contributing to the effort by sharing their expertise with the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA)’s Science Advisory Panel, a group comprised of farmers, agriculture professionals, and experts in areas such as water, conservation, and resource management. Last week, EESA scientist Peter Nico hosted the panel at the Lab to brief them on research related to developing healthy soils, sustainable groundwater management strategies, and climate-adaptive agriculture.

Susan Hubbard Named 2017 American Geophysical Union Fellow

July 27, 2017

The American Geophysical Union (AGU) has named Susan Hubbard, Associate Laboratory Director for the Earth & Environmental Sciences Area at Berkeley Lab, as a 2017 AGU Fellow.

EESA Scientist to Lead Multimillion-Dollar Geothermal Energy Project

July 20, 2017

Tim Kneafsey, a staff scientist at Berkeley Lab’s Earth & Environmental Sciences Area, will lead a new $9 million project aimed at removing technical barriers to commercialization of enhanced geothermal systems (EGS), a clean energy technology with the potential to power 100 million American homes.

Berkeley Lab will partner with seven other DOE national labs and six universities to develop field experiments focused on understanding and modeling rock fractures, an essential element of geothermal systems. Scientists will use the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) in South Dakota to create small-scale fracture networks in crystalline rock 1,500 meters below ground.