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This study investigates how the rate of fluid injection into fault zones affects the likelihood of failure and induced seismicity. Researchers developed an analytical theory and computer simulations showing that slow injection allows pressure to distribute evenly throughout the fault material, causing uniform weakening, while rapid injection creates pressure gradients that leave some regions stronger and alter failure behavior. The work successfully explains experimental observations that previous theories based on uniform pressure assumptions could not account for.
Why it matters
The findings provide quantitative guidance for designing safer fluid injection protocols in geotechnical operations such as geothermal energy extraction, wastewater disposal, and resource development. Understanding how injection rate controls fault reactivation could help reduce the risk of induced earthquakes, a significant hazard associated with subsurface fluid injection activities.
arXiv:2606.08766v2 Announce Type: replace
Abstract: Fluid injection into the Earth’s subsurface, performed for energy extraction, waste disposal, and resource development, is known to reactivate gouge-filled faults and induce seismicity, a key hazard in modern geotechnical operations. Nevertheless, the role of injection rate in controlling fault-gouge failure remains poorly understood. Here we present both an analytical theory and coupled fluid–granular (discrete element) numerical simulations to explain this rate dependence. Assuming a pre-stressed gouge-filled fault subject to fluid injection, we derive a pore-pressure diffusion equation with a dilative sink. Its solution predicts a rate-dependent failure criterion, arising from pressure heterogeneity within the layer: slow injection allows pressure to diffuse uniformly throughout the layer, promoting uniform weakening, whereas rapid injection produces strong gradients, leaving distal regions stronger. The numerical simulations confirm the theory and reproduce experimental observations not captured by classical, uniform-pressure effective-stress theory. The framework links grain-scale physics to fault-scale failure and provides quantitative guidance for the design of injection protocols in geotechnical operations involving granular geomaterials.
Source: Injection-rate effects on failure in a fluid-saturated granular fault gouge