Deep learning forecasts the spatiotemporal evolution of fluid-induced microearthquakes
Abstract Microearthquakes generated by subsurface fluid injection record the evolving stress state and permeability of reservoirs. Forecasting their spatiotemporal evolution is therefore critical for applications such as enhanced geothermal systems, carbon dioxide sequestration and other geoengineer...
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| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Nature Portfolio
2025-08-01
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| Series: | Communications Earth & Environment |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-02644-z |
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| Summary: | Abstract Microearthquakes generated by subsurface fluid injection record the evolving stress state and permeability of reservoirs. Forecasting their spatiotemporal evolution is therefore critical for applications such as enhanced geothermal systems, carbon dioxide sequestration and other geoengineering applications. Here we propose a transformer neural network model that ingests hydraulic stimulation history and prior microearthquake observations to forecast four key quantities: cumulative microearthquake count, cumulative logarithmic seismic moment, and the 50th- and 95th-percentile extents of the microearthquake cloud. Applied to the EGS Collab Experiment 1 dataset, the model achieves R 2 > 0.98 for the 1-s forecast horizon and R 2 > 0.88 for the 15-s forecast horizon across all targets, and supplies uncertainty estimates through a learned standard deviation term. These accurate, uncertainty-quantified forecasts enable real-time inference of fracture propagation and permeability evolution, demonstrating the strong potential of deep-learning approaches to improve seismic-risk assessment and guide mitigation strategies in future fluid-injection operations. |
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| ISSN: | 2662-4435 |