What moved where?: The impact of velocity uncertainty on microseismic location and moment-tensor inversion

Abstract

With the rise of unconventional resources, microseismic monitoring is becoming increasingly important because of its cost-effectiveness. This has led to significant research activity on how best to locate events and characterize their moment tensors. Locations tell us where fracturing is occurring, allow the tracking of fluid movement, and fracture propagation. Moment tensors help to determine the type of failure occurring, which is beneficial in planning and interpreting the results of hydraulic-fracturing jobs and in monitoring production. The rising number of methods to determine parameters raises important questions about how uncertainties in the input parameters are translated into uncertainties in the final locations and moment tensors. We present a framework for assessing these uncertainties and use it to demonstrate how velocity uncertainty — as well as uncertainties in arrival times and amplitudes — translates into uncertainties on the recovered quantities of location and moment-tensor parameters.