Impact of distance-dependent location dispersion error on interpretation of microseismic event distributions

Abstract

Along with horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing technology, monitoring-induced microseismic activity during hydraulic fracturing has played a significant role in the economic development of today's prolific tight-gas and shale resource plays. Many microseismic fracture monitoring papers in the current literature discuss the equipment, how to acquire and process microseismic data, and how to determine an appropriate velocity model. Unfortunately, for an operating company's completion engineers and geophysicists charged with interpreting these data and integrating them with other data sets, only a few papers discuss the impact of artifacts and location uncertainties on the interpretation. While microseismic data have been very useful in the economic development of resource plays, there are a number of significant pitfalls and interpretational issues that, if not understood, will potentially lead to erroneous interpretations. This is especially important for any real-time decisions during a hydraulic fracture treatment.