DIPARTIMENTO DI SCIENZE DELL’AMBIENTE E DELLA TERRA

UNIVERSITA’ MILANO - BICOCCA

PROGETTO DIPARTIMENTI DI ECCELLENZA

Induced seismicity and climate change: is there any link? Antonio Pio Rinaldi

ETH, Zurich Giovedì 29 novembre ore 14:30 - U1 Aula Marchetti

Understanding how to deal with climate change represents a key challenge for research in the upcoming years. Two main lines of research can be followed to fight climate change: 1) find and exploit new forms of clean energy and 2) reduce emission to atmosphere. This means, in terms of georesources, on the one hand to limit exploitation of fossil fuels by developing carbon free energy (e.g. geothermal) and, on the other hand, to store CO2 and/or waste (e.g. nuclear or wastewater) in the underground. Both forms of exploitation of underground resources has a potential of inducing earthquakes, therefore gaining increasing interest in the scientific geocommunity. A quick review of the distribution of the world energy supply shows that about 85% of all currently employed energy production techniques can be associated with induced seismicity. In this presentation, I will review some recent numerical modeling studies aimed at understanding (i) the physical mechanisms causing the link between induced seismicity and the enhanced geothermal systems exploitation, (ii) the possible reactivation of a fault during CO2 storage and its link to possible leakage at shallow depth, and finally (iii) a recent work trying to understand if nuclear waste disposal could also be linked to induced fault reactivation. These modeling results and these real field examples, representing the state of the art, point out that understanding induced seismicity, while not directly linked to it, will be pivotal for the future of climate change.