In the Permian Wolfcamp shale formation in west Texas, density fields of microseismic events were mapped in four dimensions and variations were noted in the geometry of the hydraulic stimulation as well as in the development of pressure away from the perforations. In addition to aiding well-spacing decisions, these data were used to study individual-well geometries and compare variations in the microseismic response between adjacent wells.
Results
The data sets demonstrate that high-fidelity microseismic data can be acquired by use of downhole tractored and multiobservational well-imaging techniques to understand stimulations and the stress fields better as indicated by microseismic data. The data are called high-fidelity because, in general, they are excellent data that are consistent and conform to standard understandings of stimulations. Beyond the robustness in event counts, the data typically have a high signal/noise ratio with high-quality waveforms for picking and consistent hodograms across the tools within the array.
