mechanical properties of shale gas reservoir rocks part 2 ductile creep brittle strength and their relation to the elastic modulus we studied the elastic moduli ductile creep behavior and brittle strength of shale gas reservoir rocks from barnett haynesville eagle ford and fortst john shale in a series of triaxial laboratory experiments we found a strong correlation between the shale compositions in particular the volume of clay plus kerogen and intact rock strength frictional strength and viscoplastic creep viscoplastic creep strain was approximately linear with the applied differential stress the reduction in sample volume during creep suggested that the creep was accommodated by slight pore compaction in a manner similar to instantaneous strain there was more viscoplastic creep in samples deformed perpendicular to the bedding than parallel to the bedding the tendency to creep also correlated well with the static young s modulus we explained this apparent correlation between creep behavior and elastic modulus by appealing to the stress partitioning that occurs between the soft components of the shales clay and kerogen and the stiff components quartz feldspar pyrite and carbonates through a simple 1d analysis we found that a unique relation between the creep compliance and elastic modulus independent of composition and orientation can be established by considering the individual creep behavior of the soft and stiff components that arises from the stress partitioning within the rock this appears to provide a mechanical explanation for why long term ductile deformational properties can appear to correlate with short term elastic properties in shale gas reservoir rocks

compressive and tensile failure of inclined well bores and determination of in situ stress and rock strength in this paper we investigate the occurrence of compressive and tensile failures of arbitrarily inclined well bores under a wide variety of stress conditions the principal assumptions in this analysis are that the rock is isotropic and that it deforms elastically to the point of failure as has been shown by previous investigators for a given stress state and well bore orientation it is straightforward to predict the orientation of the failures around the well bore as well as whether failure is likely to occur depending on such parameters as rock strength and borehole fluid pressure however as the stress state is almost never known in situ we demonstrate how observations of compressive and tensile wall failures in inclined holes can be used to constrain in situ stress orientations and magnitudes if there are independent data on the magnitude of the least principal stress from either leak off or microfrac tests and on the formation pore pressure we further demonstrate how once the stress state is determined it is possible to assess both an upper bound on the effective in situ rock strength and the degree to which increasing the borehole fluid pressure or mud weight can reduce the likelihood of borehole failure through application of this methodology to an inclined well bore in an area of complex faulting in the gulf of mexico we illustrate how it is possible to utilize observations of borehole failures to determine the magnitude and orientation of the stress tensor in areas such as offshore sedimentary basins where drilling inclined well bores is quite common

the alberta foreland basin relationship between stratigraphy and cordilleran terrane accretion events a foreland basin sequence resulting from accretion of a terrane to a continental passive margin ideally should be unconformity bounded with a shallowing upward pattern like the classic flysch to molasse sequence of alpine foreland basins the basal unconformity is cut as the peripheral bulge associated with lithospheric flexure migrates cratonward ahead of the basin and the advancing overthrusts the shallowing occurs because sediment supply at first is low early stages of accretion near the continental slope generate little or no topography above sea level later stages result in significant tectonic uplift and much sediment is shed into the foreland filling the basin the upper unconformity is cut as lithospheric bending stresses are relaxed following overthrusting and reduction of the flexural load on the lithosphere through erosion and or tectonic denudation of the overthrusts causes regional uplift or basin rebound actual sequences show differences from this idealized version in that i

global crustal stress pattern based on the world stress map database release 2008 the world stress map wsm project is a global compilation of information on the contemporary crustal stress field from a wide range of stress indicators the wsm database release 2008 contains 21 750 stress data records that are quality ranked using an updated and refined quality ranking scheme almost 17 000 of these data records have a c quality and are considered to record the orientation of maximum horizontal compressional stress sh to within 25 as this is almost a triplication of data records compared with the first wsm database release in 1992 we reinvestigate the spatial wave length of the stress patterns with a statistical analysis on a global 0 5 grid the resulting smoothed global stress map displays both the mean sh orientation that follows from the maximum smoothing radius for which the standard deviation is b25 and a countour map that displays the wave length of the stress pattern this smoothed global map confirms that long wave length stress patterns n2000 km exist for example in north america and ne asia these have been used in earlier analyses to conclude that the global stress pattern is primarily controlled by plate boundary forces that are transmitted into the intraplate region however our analysis reveals that rather short wave length of the stress pattern b200 km are quite frequent too particularly in western europe alaska and the aleutians the southern rocky mountains basin and range province scandinavia caucasus most of the himalayas and indonesia this implies that local stress sources such as density contrasts and active fault systems in some areas have high impact in comparison to plate boundary forces and control the regional stress pattern

quantitative constraints to the complete state of stress from the combined borehole and focal mechanism inversions fox creek alberta abstract we develop a quantitative predictive model for the state of stress of a volume of crust encompassing the duvernay formation with a spatial extent of over 150 km 150 km centred near the municipality of fox creek an average direction of the maximum horizontal compression sh is of n43 e determined from analysis of 20 borehole image logs a model of the vertical stress sv corrected for topographic variations is provided from the integration of a 3d density volume constructed from 1125 density logs the minimum horizontal compressions sh and pore pressures pp are evaluated through analysis of 57 well tests carried out within the duvernay formation 3d models developed by kriging of the observed values stress inversion of the focal mechanism solutions for the earthquakes nearby validated the assumed andersonian stress regime and provided the shape ratio of the stress which further allowed estimation of maximum horizontal compression sh a supplementary program is provided allowing the user to calculate the full set of components necessary to describe the states of in situ stress for a location of interest near the duvernay formation within our study area

damped regional scale stress inversions methodology and examples for southern california and the coalinga aftershock sequence 1 we present a new focal mechanism stress inversion technique to produce regional scale models of stress orientation containing the minimum complexity necessary to fit the data current practice is to divide a region into small subareas and to independently fit a stress tensor to the focal mechanisms of each subarea this procedure may lead to apparent spatial variability that is actually an artifact of overfitting noisy data or nonuniquely fitting data that does not completely constrain the stress tensor to remove these artifacts while retaining any stress variations that are strongly required by the data we devise a damped inversion method to simultaneously invert for stress in all subareas while minimizing the difference in stress between adjacent subareas this method is conceptually similar to other geophysical inverse techniques that incorporate damping such as seismic tomography in checkerboard tests the damped inversion removes the stress rotation artifacts exhibited by an undamped inversion while resolving sharper true stress rotations than a simple smoothed model or a moving window inversion we show an example of a spatially damped stress field for southern california the methodology can also be used to study temporal stress changes and an example for the coalinga california aftershock sequence is shown we recommend use of the damped inversion technique for any study examining spatial or temporal variations in the stress field

linking fossil reefs with earthquakes geologic insight to where induced seismicity occurs in alberta recently a significant increase in north american midcontinent earthquakes has been associated with contemporaneous development of petroleum resources despite the proliferation of drilling throughout sedimentary basins worldwide earthquakes are only induced at a small fraction of wells in this study we focus on cases of induced seismicity where high resolution data are available in the central western canada sedimentary basin our regional comparison of induced earthquake depths suggests basement controlled tectonics complementary to these findings hypocenters of induced seismicity clusters coincide with the margins of devonian carbonate reefs we interpret this spatial correspondence as the result of geographically biased activation potential possibly as a consequence of reef nucleation preference to paleobathymetric highs associated with precambrian basement tectonics this finding demonstrates the importance of geologic tectonic factors to earthquake induction in addition to industrial operational parameters in fact the observation of induced seismicity silhouetting deep fossil reef systems may be a useful tool to identify future regions with increased seismogenic potential

crustal stress determination from boreholes and rock cores fundamental principles abstract obtaining quantitative information on the state of stress in the crust can only be accomplished by accessing the zone of interest by drilling the borehole cavity however disrupts the virgin stress state by concentrating stresses in predictable patterns with a number of consequences at sufficiently low stress magnitudes the concentrated stresses amplify the elastic anisotropy azimuthally around the borehole because the elastic properties of most rocks depend nonlinearly on stress at higher levels the stresses damage then fracture the rock near the wellbore wall or within a growing core stub indeed almost all of the borehole techniques indirectly measure stress through these manifestations of the concentrated stresses this contribution reviews at a fundamental level the concentration of stresses by the borehole the effects on the materials in the borehole s vicinity and how these are used to infer stress states stress concentrations applied to rocks which are generally nonlinear elastic materials induce both radial and azimuthal variations in elastic wave speeds near the borehole that can be used to infer stress directions from advanced acoustic logging methods hydraulic fractures initiate propagate and remain propped open by measured pressures that can be interpreted with knowledge of the stress concentrations to obtain quantitative stress magnitudes at higher stress levels the rock fails producing borehole breakouts or drilling induced tensile fractures both of which are indicative of stress directions and can be used to constrain stress magnitudes similarly the various styles of drilling induced core fractures indicate both stress directions and the faulting environment encountered unfortunately no method currently allows for complete determination of the stress tensor using a number of different but complementary techniques is necessary to best constrain in situ stress states

geochemistry and u pb zircon ages of metamorphic volcanic rocks of the paleoproterozoic luliang complex and constraints on the evolution of the trans north china orogen north china craton abstract the paleoproterozoic luliang complex is situated in the central part of the western margin of the trans north china orogen and consists of volcanic rocks sedimentary rocks and paleoproterozoic granitoid intrusions the volcanic rocks and earlier granitoid rocks were strongly deformed and metamorphosed into the greenschist to amphibolite facies these metamorphosed volcanic rocks are dominated by basalts to basaltic andesites the parental mafic magmas of these metamorphosed volcanic rocks were mainly derived from the 5 to 30 partial melting of spinel lherzolites to spinel garnet lherzolites which had been enriched by the subduction melts mafic magma experienced fractional crystallization and crustal assimilation u pb zircon dating on two metamorphosed volcanic rocks from the yejishan and luliang groups reveals that they formed at 2210 13 ma and 2213 47 ma respectively and were metamorphosed at 1832 ma this suggests that the metamorphosed volcanic rocks in the yejishan and luliang groups formed synchronously in the paleoproterozoic these new ages integrated with recently reported u pb zircon ages for the jiehekou group and paleoproterozoic granitoids suggest that all of the lithological assemblages of the luliang complex formed and were metamorphosed in the paleoproterozoic not in the neoarchean petrological geochronological and geochemical data suggest that the geodynamic evolution of the paleoproterozoic luliang complex was involved in the development of a magmatic arc system at an active continental margin generating widespread arc related magmatism at 2 2 ga the luliang complex then underwent intense deformation and metamorphism and was incorporated into the trans north china orogen during the 1 88 1 83 ga collisional event which was followed by post collision extension at 1 80 ga

absolute stress fields in the source region of the 1992 landers earthquake earthquake focal mechanisms are often inverted to obtain the deviatoric stress field because shear stress is equal to the frictional strength of the fault at the time of an earthquake six components of the absolute stress tensor at the hypocenter can be obtained from a focal mechanism by combining deviatoric stress fields with the coulomb failure criterion for a data set of focal mechanisms determined for southern california earthquakes including the 1992 landers earthquake sequence we calculated the absolute stress tensors at their hypocenters using a standard intrinsic friction coefficient under three pore pressure conditions parameterized by the reference pore pressure at the optimally oriented faults to the stress field three absolute stress fields were obtained for southern california immediately before the landers main shock by applying each data set of the stress tensors to an inversion scheme based on bayesian statistical inference and akaike s bayesian information criterion the coseismic stress field was calculated to obtain the absolute stress fields immediately after the main shock the variations of the coseismic stress rotation were related to the reference pore pressure comparing this relation with that obtained through stress inversion we determined the absolute stress field and the most plausible reference pore pressure to be hydrostatic on average the maximum shear stresses immediately before the main shock were 44 15 and 79 24 mpa at depths of 5 and 10 km respectively earthquakes on the off plate boundary faults in southern california occur on faults that are loaded by anderson byerlee stress conditions

determination of stress from slip data faults and folds a new technique is derived to invert slickenside data for the stress field that caused the faulting episode this inversion is simplified by the assumption that the magnitude of the tangential traction on the various fault planes at the time of rupture is similar study of three normal faulting regimes shows that the inversion derived with this assumption yields results that closely match older inversions that did not include the assumption hence the assumption may be valid and is shown to be justified by analyzing a simple fracture criterion application of slip data inversions is extended from faulting regimes to the slip on bedding plane faults in folding regimes comparison of the inversion results with the geometry of the folds shows this application to be successful greatly increasing the number of data sets that can be used to find the paleostress field

systematic assessment of fault stability in the northern niger delta basin nigeria implication for hydrocarbon prospects and increased seismicities abstract accurate information on fault networks the full stress tensor and pore fluid pressures are required for quantifying the stability of structure bound hydrocarbon prospects carbon dioxide sequestration and drilling prolific and safe wells particularly fluid injections wells such information also provides essential data for a proper understanding of superinduced seismicities associated with areas of intensive hydrocarbon exploration and solid minerals mining activities pressure and stress data constrained from wells and seismic data in the northern niger delta basin nndb nigeria have been analysed in the framework of fault stability indices by varying the maximum horizontal stress direction from 0 to 90 evaluated at depths of 2 km 3 5 km and 4 km we have used fault dips and azimuths interpreted from high resolution 3d seismic data to calculate the predisposition of faults to failures in three faulting regimes normal pseudo strike slip and pseudo thrust the weighty decrease in the fault stability at 3 5 km depth from 1 2 mpa to 0 55 mpa demonstrates a reduction of the fault strength by high magnitude overpressures pore fluid pressures 50 mpa have tendencies to increase the risk of faults to failure in the study area statistical analysis of stability indices si indicates faults dipping 50 60 80 90 and azimuths ranging 100 110 are most favourably oriented for failure to take place and thus likely to favour migrations of fluids given appropriate pressure and stress conditions in the dominant normal faulting regime of the nndb a few of the locally assessed stability of faults show varying results across faulting regimes however the near similarities of some model based results in the faulting regimes explain the stability of subsurface structures are greatly influenced by the maximum horizontal stress shmax direction and magnitude of pore fluid pressures

shrimp u pb zircon ages of granitoid rocks in the luliang complex implications for the accretion and evolution of the trans north china orogen abstract the luliang complex is situated in the central segment of the trans north china orogen tnco a continent continent collisional belt along which the discrete eastern and western blocks amalgamated to form the basement of the north china craton the complex consists of supracrustal and granitoid rocks of which the latter can be subdivided into pre tectonic ttg gneisses including the yunzhongshan guojiazhuang and chijianling guandishan gneisses syn tectonic gneissic granites represented by the huijiazhuang gneissic granite and post tectonic granites including the luyashan charnockite luchaogou porphyritic granite and tangershang guandishan massive granite the pre tectonic ttg gneisses are mostly calc alkaline and considered to have formed in a magmatic arc environment shrimp u pb analyses reveal that the yunzhongshan gneisses were emplaced at 2499 9 ma representing the earliest arc related magmatic event in the luliang complex this was followed by the intrusion of the guojiazhuang gneisses at 2375 10 ma the most widespread arc related magmatic event in the region was the emplacement of the chijianling guandishan granitoid gneisses of which the tonalitic granodioritic and monzogranitic gneisses were emplaced at 2199 11 ma 2180 7 ma and 2173 7 ma respectively metamorphic zircon overgrowth rims from a tonalitic gneiss yielded a weighted mean 207 pb 206 pb age of 1872 7 ma consistent with the metamorphic age range of 1880 1820 ma defined by metamorphic zircons from various high grade rocks in the tnco thus the evolution of the luliang complex involved emplacement of the yunzhongshan granitoids at 2499 ma the guajiazhuang granitoids at 2375 ma and the chijianling guandishan granitoids at 2199 2173 ma with the final collision between the eastern and western blocks in this area occurring at 1872 7 ma the whole series of magmatic events lasting nearly 650 ma this suggests that the trans north china orogen represents a long lived magmatic arc the new shrimp zircon data combined with structural and petrological studies also reveal the existence of both syn and post collisional granites in the luliang complex the former is represented by the huijiazhuang gneissic granite that was emplaced at 1832 11 ma whereas the latter include the 1815 5 ma luyashan charnockite 1807 10 ma luchaogou porphyritic granite 1798 11 ma guandishan massive granite and 1790 14 ma tangershan massive granite

structural pattern of the wutai complex and its constraints on the tectonic framework of the trans north china orogen abstract wutai complex is a key to test controversial models for the tectonic evolution of the trans north china orogen tnco along which the eastern and western blocks amalgamated to form the north china craton three stages of deformation d 1 to d 3 were identified in the wutai complex d 1 is characterized by ne sw trending foliations s 1 and nw se orientated lineations l 1 indicating an initial nw se directed compression associated with d 1 was prograde metamorphism m 1 d 2 progressively overprinted d 1 and generated z shaped folds and nee sww trending ductile shear zones d 2 resulted in a fan shaped structural pattern of the complex with top to the nw thrusting in the northwestern part and opposite top to the se thrusting in the southeastern part during d 2 the crust was doubled through thickening leading to peak metamorphism m 2 d 3 developed during post collision exhumation and deformed the early fabrics to be open folds resulting in near isothermal decompression m 3 and late cooling metamorphism m 4 the overall structure of the wutai complex is characterized by a fan shaped pattern with structural divergence structural features of the wutai complex combined with those of the adjacent hengshan and fuping complexes indicate that the tnco is characterized by a fan shaped orogenic wedge with opposite senses of thrust this orogenic wedge could have resulted from an eastward subduction and collision between the western and eastern blocks to finally form the tnco at 1 85 ga

geochemistry of neoarchean ca 2 55 2 50 ga volcanic and ophiolitic rocks in the wutaishan greenstone belt central orogenic belt north china craton implications for geodynamic setting and continental growth discussion we read with interest the contribution by polat et al 2005 1 on the origin of neoarchean volcanic and ophiolitic rocks in the wutaishan greenstone belt northern china and their geo dynamic setting we do not dispute the quality of the authors data and their interpretations but we disagree

static and dynamic pressure sensitivity anisotropy of a calcareous shale optimizing the productivity of nonconventional low permeability shale reservoirs requires detailed knowledge of the mechanical properties of such materials these rocks elastic anisotropy is acknowledged but usually ignored due to difficulties in obtaining such information here we study in detail the dynamic and static elastic properties of a suite of calcareous mudstones from the nonconventional duvernay reservoir of alberta canada the complete set of transversely isotropic elastic constants is obtained from strategically oriented ultrasonic transducers to confining pressures of 90 mpa wave speed anisotropies of up to 35 are observed at even the highest confining pressures furthermore the stress sensitivity of the wave speeds and hence moduli is itself highly dependent on direction with speeds taken perpendicular to the bedding plane being highly nonlinearly dependent on pressure whereas those along the bedding plane show unexpectedly nearly no pressure dependence these observations are in qualitative agreement with the preferentially oriented porosity and minerals seen in scanning electron microscope images these results may be significant to the interpretation of sonic logs and azimuthal amplitude versus offset for principal stress directions for the concentration of stress within such formations and for estimation of static engineering moduli from sonic log wave speeds

fault activation by hydraulic fracturing in western canada hydraulic fracturing has been inferred to trigger the majority of injection induced earthquakes in western canada in contrast to the midwestern united states where massive saltwater disposal is the dominant triggering mechanism a template based earthquake catalog from a seismically active canadian shale play combined with comprehensive injection data during a 4 month interval shows that earthquakes are tightly clustered in space and time near hydraulic fracturing sites the largest event moment magnitude mw 3 9 occurred several weeks after injection along a fault that appears to extend from the injection zone into crystalline basement patterns of seismicity indicate that stress changes during operations can activate fault slip to an offset distance of 1 km whereas pressurization by hydraulic fracturing into a fault yields episodic seismicity that can persist for months

an integrative geothermal resource assessment study for the siliciclastic granite wash unit northwestern alberta canada this study explores the siliciclastic granite wash unit in northwestern alberta as a potential geothermal reservoir the approach covers regional 3d structural geological modelling of a 90 km 70 km area based on well log and legacy 2d seismic data the fault strike was interpreted from lineaments which were identified with the refined trend surface analysis method the stress state of the granite wash reservoirs was determined by an integrated approach of 3d fault modelling stress ratio definition based on frictional constraints and slip tendency analysis the results show that the best site for a geothermal application is located in the southwestern study area where the highest temperatures above 70 c coincide with the largest thickness above 20 m and zones of elevated porosity and permeability the integrated stress analysis indicates an in situ stress regime from normal to strike slip faulting maintaining a non critically stressed reservoir or faults therein assuming a friction coefficient of 0 7 the granite wash reservoirs could be used for heating of greenhouses domestic warm water provision and district heating

geochronology and petrogenesis of gray gneisses from the taihua complex at xiong er in the southern segment of the trans north china orogen implications for tectonic transformation in the early paleoproterozoic the taihua complex in the xiong er area along the southern segment of the trans north china orogen tnco consists of gray gneisses with minor amphibolites zircon u pb dating of the gray gneisses reveals at least two episodes of early paleoproterozoic magmatism 2 30 2 32 ga and 2 07 2 19 ga each with distinct geochemical features the tieluping ttg gneisses of the early suite have very low hree ybn 0 58 4 75 and y contents 2 05 13 2 ppm with moderate to high la yb n 14 3 192 6 and sr y ratios 38 5 220 1 pronounced negative ta nb and ti anomalies but positive sr and pb anomalies the protoliths of these gneisses were most likely derived from partial melting of thickened lower crust with residual garnet and amphibole and underwent garnet amphibole fractionation plagioclase accumulation and or fractionation the tieluping ttg gneisses have variable zircon hf model ages tdm hfc 2 48 3 06 ga and whole rock end t values 4 89 4 98 and the youngest whole rock depleted mantle nd model age tdm 2 32 ga is close to the crystallization age of the ttg 2318 8 ma the protolith of the gneisses formed from a combination of pre existing continental crust and juvenile materials implying an andean type continental margin arc environment it is suggested that crustal thickening was the result of accretionary orogenesis accompanied by basaltic underplating the ganshugou potassium rich gneisses of the later suite have low na2o and high k2o and show fractionated lree and nearly flat hree patterns with strong negative ta nb and ti anomalies they are characterized by negative end t values 5 01 to 2 33 and heterogeneous zircon ehf t values 10 65 2 10 with decoupling of zircon hf model ages tdm hfc 2 64 3 23 ga and whole rock nd model ages tdm 2 55 2 81 ga the protolith of the ganshugou gneisses was a potassium rich igneous rock which was likely the result of partial melting of pre existing crustal materials at shallow depth compatible with a post collisional setting there is therefore a tectonic transformation from an accretionary orogenesis to an extensional regime as a consequence of post collisional uplift in the southern segment of the tnco in the early paleoproterozoic

flexure of lithosphere beneath the alberta foreland basin evidence of an eastward stiffening continental lithosphere the flexure of the mississippian unconformity mu is used to constrain the stiffness of the lithosphere beneath the alberta foreland basin afb this flexure supports the sedimentological evidence for the absence of a forebulge in the afb and implies that the peak of the forebulge lies further east of the alberta saskatchewan border it is demonstrated that an eastwards stiffening lithosphere is required in order to fit the flexure of the mu when flexural stiffness is expressed in terms of effective thickness it varies from about 38km west of the rocky mountains to more than 200km underneath the north american craton this variation of stiffness indicates that there is a strong lateral temperature and chemical variation underneath eastwards stiffening also implies an eastwards thickening of the elastic lithosphere such a model is in good agreement with recent petrological and geophysical evidences in the west and underneath the craton

the relationship between closure pressures from fluid injection tests and the minimum principal stress in strong rocks abstract closure pressures measured during injection tests such as mini fracs are normally considered an accurate measure of the minimum in situ principal stress magnitude this paper presents stress strength and image log data from the australian cooper basin which suggests that in reservoirs with high in situ stress high tensile strength and weak geological fabrics interpreted closure pressures may be significantly greater than the minimum principal stress closure pressures interpreted from mini frac injection tests in the cooper basin suggest the minimum principal stress varies from 12 4 27 2 mpa km 0 55 1 2 psi ft to better understand the reasons for this variation in closure pressure image logs and mini frac data from 13 treatment zones and core from seven of these treatment zones were analysed the analysis revealed that treatment zones with high measured closure pressures 18 1 mpa km 0 8 psi ft high treating pressures 31 6 mpa km 1 4 psi ft and high measured hydraulic fracture complexity existed in reservoirs with high tensile rock strength 7 mpa 1015 psi and geological fabrics planes of weakness including natural fractures conversely treatment zones with lower measured closure stress 19 mpa km 0 84 psi ft and low hydraulic fracture complexity occurred in reservoirs with lower tensile strength and or no geological fabrics we suggest that closure pressures in rocks with high tensile strength and weak geological fabrics may not be representative of the minimum principal stress magnitude in the cooper basin where they are associated with hydraulic fracture complexity rather they reflect the normal stress incident on pre existing weaknesses that are exploited by hydraulic fluid during the mini frac injection

seasonality and meridional propagation of the mjo abstract the madden julian oscillation mjo is known to have a substantial impact on the variability of the asian australian summer monsoons an important but not well understood aspect of the mjo monsoon connection is the meridional propagation of bands of enhanced or reduced precipitation that are especially pronounced during the northern summer in this study the nature of the seasonality of the mjo is examined with a focus on the meridional propagation using both observations and simulations with an atmospheric general circulation model agcm a key result is that the agcm when forced with idealized eastward propagating equatorial dipole heating anomalies reproduces the salient features of the observed seasonality in the precipitation and wind fields associated with the mjo including meridional propagation into the indian and australian summer monsoon regions an analysis of the simulations and observations shows that the off equatorial precipitation anomalies are initiated by surface fricti

present day stress analysis of the st lawrence lowlands sedimentary basin canada and implications for caprock integrity during co2 injection operations abstract a geomechanical analysis of the st lawrence lowlands sedimentary basin is important to reliably estimate the maximum sustainable fluid pressures for co 2 injection that will not reactivate pre existing faults in the caprock thereby inducing a breeched co 2 reservoir this requires the determination of prevailing stresses orientations and magnitudes fault and fractures geometries and rock strengths the average maximum horizontal stress orientation s hmax is estimated n59 e 20 in the st lawrence lowlands the stress orientations were obtained from stress induced wellbore breakouts inferred from four arm dipmeter caliper data in 17 wells these wellbore failure features are confined to paleozoic lithological units of the st lawrence platform succession and frontal thrusts of the quebec appalachians at depths from 250 m to 4 km our results are consistent with the regional ne sw s hmax stress orientation trend that is generally observed in eastern canada and the u s the stresses pressure gradients estimated for the st lawrence lowlands depths hmin 20 5 3 kpa m s v 25 6 kpa m s hmax 40 7 5 kpa m pore pressure p p 9 8 kpa m indicating a strike slip stress regime s hmin v hmax the high angle ne sw regional faults and fractures in the paleozoic sedimentary succession and the grenvillian basement are oblique to the s hmax stress orientations 10 to 36 and could be reactivated slip tendency 0 34 to 0 58 under the present day stress field if fluid pressures exceeded the critical threshold further refinement of regional geomechanical model is required to estimate the maximum sustainable injection pressure necessary for shear reactivation along the regional faults the regional pore pressure stress coupling ratio under assumed parameters is about 0 5 0 65 and may contribute to reduce the risk of shear reactivation of faults and fractures the maximum sustainable p p that would not cause opening of vertical tensile fractures during co 2 operations is about 18 5 20 mpa for the depth of 1 km

an updated stress map of the continental united states reveals heterogeneous intraplate stress knowledge of the state of stress in earth s crust is key to understanding the forces and processes responsible for earthquakes historically low rates of natural seismicity in the central and eastern united states have complicated efforts to understand intraplate stress but recent improvements in seismic networks and the spread of human induced seismicity have greatly improved data coverage here we compile a nationwide stress map based on formal inversions of focal mechanisms that challenges the idea that deformation in continental interiors is driven primarily by broad uniform stress fields derived from distant plate boundaries despite plate boundary compression extension dominates roughly half of the continent and second order forces related to lithospheric structure appear to control extension directions we also show that the states of stress in several active eastern united states seismic zones differ significantly from those of surrounding areas and that these anomalies cannot be explained by transient processes suggesting that earthquakes are focused by persistent locally derived sources of stress such spatially variable intraplate stress appears to justify the current spatially variable estimates of seismic hazard future work to quantify sources of stress stressing rate magnitudes and their relationship with strain and earthquake rates could allow prospective mapping of intraplate hazard

mjo initiation in the real time multivariate mjo index abstractmadden julian oscillation mjo initiation in the real time multivariate mjo rmm index is explored through an analysis of observed case studies and composite events specific examples illustrate that both the dates of mjo initiation and the existence of the mjo itself can vary substantially among several well known mjo indices depending on whether the focus is on convection or circulation composites of primary mjo initiation events in which the rmm index rapidly increases in amplitude from a non mjo state to an mjo state are presented and are supplemented by two case studies from the 1985 86 winter season results illustrate that for primary mjo initiation events in the indian ocean rmm phase 1 slowly eastward propagating 850 hpa 200 hpa easterly westerly anomalies over the indian ocean precede the amplification of the rmm index by at least 10 days while suppressed convection over the western pacific ocean precedes the amplification by 5 days these local eastern hemispheric prede

a seismological overview of the induced earthquakes in the duvernay play near fox creek alberta this paper summarizes the current state of understanding regarding the induced seismicity in connection with hydraulic fracturing operations targeting the duvernay formation in central alberta near the town of fox creek we demonstrate that earthquakes in this region cluster into distinct sequences in time space and focal mechanism using i cross correlation detection methods to delineate transient temporal relationships ii double difference relocations to confirm spatial clustering and iii moment tensor solutions to assess fault motion consistency the spatiotemporal clustering of the earthquake sequences is strongly related to the nearby hydraulic fracturing operations in addition we identify a preference for strike slip motions on subvertical faults with an approximate 45 p axis orientation consistent with expectation from the ambient stress field the hypocentral geometries for two of the largest magnitude m 4 sequences that are robustly constrained by local array data provide compelling evidence for planar features starting at duvernay formation depths and extending into the shallow precambrian basement we interpret these lineaments as subvertical faults orientated approximately north south consistent with the regional moment tensor solutions finally we conclude that the sequences were triggered by pore pressure increases in response to hydraulic fracturing stimulations along previously existing faults

estimation of maximum horizontal principal stress magnitude from stress induced well bore breakouts in the cajon pass scientific research borehole in this paper we utilize the mechanical properties of core samples detailed observations of stress induced well bore breakouts and estimates of the magnitude of shmin from hydraulic fracturing experiments to construct a vertical profile of the maximum horizontal principal stress shmax to 3 5 km depth in the cajon pass borehole as in essentially all other boreholes the hydraulic fracturing stress measurements in the cajon pass borehole yielded appreciably more and more reliable data on the magnitude of the least principal horizontal stress shmin than the maximum principal horizontal stress shmax to utilize the breakout observations to constrain the magnitude of shmax a brittle failure criterion was used that is based on the effective strain energy concept this failure criterion also allows us to account for the polyaxial stress around the borehole and to incorporate the role of pore fluid pressure on rock strength in various ways a comparison of the shmax profile estimated from the breakouts with estimates of shmax obtained from the hydraulic fracturing tests indicates that they compare fairly well for the case when the effect of pore pressure on hydraulic fracture initiation is negligible the overall stress state to a depth of 3 5 km in the well corresponds to a normal strike slip faulting regime the shmax profile indicates several marked decreases in stress magnitude associated with major fault zones an observation consistent with the shmin profile obtained from hydraulic fracturing tests

stress and the direction of slip on fault planes the shear stress direction on a fault plane depends only on four of the six components of the stress tensor assuming only that the slip direction marks the shear stress direction on any fault plane and that stress is homogeneous it is possible to estimate these four stress parameters from populations of fault planes with known slip directions as several workers have observed different formulations of the problem may yield varying best fitting stresses and estimates of uncertainty in the simplest case no assumptions are made regarding the orientations of fault planes relative to the stress tensor thus the technique allows for the possibility that the fault planes may be very weak here we present simple analytical and graphical descriptions of the field of admissible fault geometries relative to any four parameter stress model which can be used to illustrate the significance of various inverse strategies in particular this paper explores the effects of using two alternative measures of misfit between an observed fault datum and stress model 1 the pole rotation the angle between the observed and predicted slip direction on the observed fault plane and 2 the minimum rotation the smallest angle between the observed fault geometry and any fault geometry which is consistent with the model by allowing for variation of the fault plane as well as the slip vector the minimum rotation procedure generally achieves a more stable and presumably realistic estimate of the actual discrepancy between a fault observation and stress model than the pole rotation procedure in a test case using 17 earthquake focal mechanisms from the yuii region of eastern taiwan separate inversions based on the two misfit criteria yield different optimum stress models and uncertainty estimates additional constraints on the stress tensor such as the effect of friction can be superimposed on the ones used here

metallogeny during continental outgrowth in the columbia supercontinent isotopic characterization of the zhaiwa mo cu system in the north china craton abstract the eastern qinling molybdenum belt eqmb in central china represents the largest mo province in the world located at the southern margin of the north china craton this mo province is largely associated with mesozoic granitoids here we report re os isochron age of 1761 33 ma 2 mswd 2 9 from molybdenite in the recently discovered zhaiwa porphyry mo cu system within the eqmb this age coincides with the peak eruption period 1 78 1 75 ga of the xiong er group volcanic rocks which unconformably overlie the taihua supergroup and are interpreted to have developed on a continental arc the re concentrations 1 to 43 ppm of the zhaiwa molybdenites are similar to those of typical porphyry cu mo au systems developed on continental arcs the 34 s values of the zhaiwa ores 2 7 7 3 average 5 2 suggest that the sulfur was mainly sourced from a magmatic system the sulfides from the ores yield sr i average of 0 70533 similar to that of the xiong er group 0 70547 albeit higher than that of the kuanping group 0 70334 and lower than the taihua supergroup 0 70763 suggesting a mixed source the average e nd 1 76 ga of the sulfides from the ores 0 9 falls between the averages of the taihua supergroup ca 6 8 and the kuanping group ca 7 4 the pb isotope ratios of the ores are similar to but slightly higher than those of the taihua supergroup reflecting preferential leaching of radiogenic pb from the taihua supergroup by magmatic fluids integrated data and interpretations constrain the zhaiwa mo cu deposit to be a porphyry mineral system developed within a ca 1 76 ga continental arc related to oceanic plate subduction beneath the southern margin of the north china craton a correlation between tectonic settings and metallogenic types clearly indicate that the xiong er group was formed in a volcanic arc confirming paleo mesoproterozoic continental outgrowth along the margins of the columbia supercontinent the isotopic characterization of the zhaiwa deposit provides new insights into the enigma of the widespread distribution of large and super large mo deposits of eqmb along the southern margin of the north china craton

hydraulic fracturing and the crooked lake sequences insights gleaned from regional seismic networks within central alberta canada a new sequence of earthquakes has been recognized as of 1 december 2013 in a region of previous seismic quiescence near crooked lake 30 km west of the town of fox creek we utilize a cross correlation detection algorithm to detect more than 160 events to the end of 2014 which is temporally distinguished into five subsequences this observation is corroborated by the uniqueness of waveforms clustered by subsequence the crooked lake sequences have come under scrutiny due to its strong temporal correlation 99 99 to the timing of hydraulic fracturing operations in the duvernay formation we assert that individual subsequences are related to fracturing stimulation and despite adverse initial station geometry double difference techniques allow us to spatially relate each cluster back to a unique horizontal well overall we find that seismicity in the crooked lake sequences is consistent with first order observations of hydraulic fracturing induced seismicity

zircon u pb dating and hf isotope analysis on the taihua complex constraints on the formation and evolution of the trans north china orogen abstract precise age determination and source tracing of the granitic and pegmatitic gneisses of the taihua complex in the xiaoqinling area are important to address the debates on the timing and processes of the amalgamation of the western and eastern blocks along the trans north china orogen this paper conducted zircon dating of metamorphic rocks from the xiaoqinling area the results demonstrate that the collision between the western and eastern blocks occurred in the paleoproterozoic laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry la icpms zircon uranium lead u pb analyses yielded consistent results the early paleoproterozoic the first period age of 2346 28 ma was determined for granitic gneiss in the taihua complex and 2328 14 ma for the xiaohe granite pluton that intruded into the granitic gneiss the gneissose pegmatitic granite and granitic veins that intruded into the granitic gneiss yielded la icp ms zircon ages of 1881 24 and 1866 19 ma respectively these paleoproterozoic ages strongly indicate that the ocean between the eastern and western blocks were completely subducted at 1 85 ga the hf t values of the zircons from the granitic gneiss can be divided into a positive group 0 44 to 3 77 and a negative group 3 11 to 1 27 the two stage hafnium hf model ages tdm2 hf corresponding to the positive values are between 2672 and 2887 ma the hf t values of the zircons from the xiaohe granite range from 2 49 to 2 58 with the hf isotope model ages ranging from 2742 to 3022 ma thus the xiaohe granite could have resulted from the partial melting of the late archean lower crust caused by subduction and the presence of juvenile mantle material the primary magma of the granitic gneiss of the paleoproterozoic taihua complex was derived from the differentiation of the depleted late archean mantle source with a small portion derived from the remelting of the subducted lower crust

shrimp u pb zircon geochronology of the liaoji granitoids constraints on the evolution of the paleoproterozoic jiao liao ji belt in the eastern block of the north china craton abstract the paleoproterozoic jiao liao ji belt lies at the eastern margin of the eastern block of the north china craton and is composed mainly of the liaohe group and the liaoji granitoids the liaoji granitoids are divisible into pre tectonic magnetite and hornblende biotite monzogranitic gneisses and post tectonic or anorogenic porphyritic monzogranites and alkaline syenites shrimp u pb zircon geochronology combined with cathodoluminescence cl imaging has enabled for resolution of magmatic and metamorphic events that can be directed towards understanding the history of the paleoproterozoic jiao liao ji belt shrimp u pb zircon analyses reveal that the pre tectonic magnetite monzogranitic gneisses were emplaced in the period 2176 2166 ma and metamorphosed at 1914 ma and the pre tectonic hornblende biotite monzogranitic gneisses were emplaced at 2150 2143 ma these data demonstrate that the pre tectonic monzogranitic gneisses of the liaoji granitoids were not younger than the deposition of the liaohe group as previously considered since the latter contains a large amount of 2100 2000 ma detrital zircons in contrast the pre tectonic monzogranitic gneisses of the liaoji granitoids or similar aged granitoids may have been an important component of the provenance for the liaohe group shrimp u pb zircon analyses also reveal that the post tectonic porphyritic monzogranites and granites in the jiao liao ji belt were emplaced at 1875 10 and 1856 31 ma respectively simultaneously with the emplacement of the alkaline syenites that was dated at 1857 20 and 1843 23 ma similar post tecotnic or anorogenic granites are not only limited to the jiao liao ji belt but are also found in the north and south korea suggesting that the 1 85 ga post tectonic or anorogenic granitic magmatic event may have occurred in both the korean peninsula and the eastern block of the north china craton the shrimp zircon ages of this study combined with lithological structural metamorphic and geochemical data is consistent with a rift closure model which suggests that the archean complexes on the northern and southern sides of the jiao liao ji belt were originally situated on a single continental block that underwent paleoproterozoic rifting associated with the formation of the liaohe group and liaoji granitoids and closed upon itself at 1 9 ga

discriminating induced seismicity from natural earthquakes using moment tensors and source spectra earthquake source mechanisms and spectra can provide important clues to aid in discriminating between natural and induced events in this study we calculate moment tensors and stress drop values for eight recent induced earthquakes in the western canadian sedimentary basin with magnitudes between 3 2 and 4 4 as well as a nearby magnitude 5 3 event that is interpreted as a natural earthquake we calculate full moment tensor solutions by performing a waveform fitting procedure based on a 1 d transversely isotropic velocity model in addition to a dominant double couple dc signature that is common to nearly all events most induced events exhibit significant non double couple components a parameter sensitivity analysis indicates that spurious non dc components are negligible if the signal to noise ratio snr exceeds 10 and if the 1 d model differs from the true velocity structure by less than 5 estimated focal depths of induced events are significantly shallower than the typical range of focal depths for intraplate earthquakes in the canadian shield stress drops of the eight induced events were estimated using a generalized spectral fitting method and fall within the typical range of 2 to 90 mpa for tectonic earthquakes elastic moduli changes due to the brittle damage production at the source presence of multiple intersecting fractures dilatant jogs created at the overlapping areas of multiple fractures or non planar pre existing faults may explain the non dc components for induced events

stress tensor inversion using detailed microearthquake information and stability constraints application to olfus in southwest iceland using detailed microearthquake data we present a stress tensor inversion scheme with new methods for selecting the fault planes and allowing for errors in the focal mechanisms the nonuniqueness of earthquake focal mechanisms is accounted for in our inversion scheme through the introduction into the inversion of a range of well fitting focal mechanisms for each event the range of focal mechanisms significantly improves the quality of the estimated stress tensor relative localization of clusters of microearthquakes is used to obtain information about which nodal plane could be correct fault plane the clusters frequently fall on a common fault plane and if there are acceptable focal mechanisms where one nodal plane has orientation similar to the common plane we assume this is the correct fault plane for the event if there is no predefined fault plane we utilize a simple mohr coloumb failure criterion to obtain a physical choice of fault plane between the two nodal planes in the focal mechanism the nodal plane with highest relative instability is chosen as the fault plane differences between the instability and the standard slip angle criterion are investigated the new inversion scheme has been applied to microearthquake data from the olfus area in the vicinity of the southwest iceland triple junction we estimate an oblique strike slip state of stress maximum horizontal stress at n30 e and minimum horizontal stress at n60 w with significant normal faulting influence the instability fault selection criterion predicts very well the orientation of faults mapped by relative localization

newly emerging cases of hydraulic fracturing induced seismicity in the duvernay east shale basin abstract hydraulic fracturing hf in the duvernay formation near fox creek alberta canada has produced some of the most prolific clusters of induced seismicity in this paper we describe newly emerging clusters of events occurring in previously quiescent and undeveloped areas of the duvernay formation in the duvernay east shale basin an industry supplemented waveform database is examined using a variety of seismological techniques here strike slip events as large as 4 18 ml have been felt in nearby cities temporal relationships suggest these clusters are almost certainly 99 7 confidence caused by nearby hf spatially these earthquakes tend to occur in the strata directly overlying the duvernay formation and laterally near a horizontal well one exceptional cluster clearly delineates a 1 5 km offset between its centroid and the inducing horizontal well raising questions about the earthquake triggering mechanism westward in the duvernay two minor clusters within the willesden green region appear to be tenuously related to hf completions this study also places constraints on the structural geology of faulting occurring in the rocky mountain house seismogenic zone a region of induced seismicity related to secondary recovery in the strachan d 3a pool here our moment tensors and double difference relocations describe thrust slip on a fault underlying the target formation last the largest event 4 27 ml in our study area was likely natural due to its deeper hypocentral depth 15 km and non correspondence with industrial operations overall the newly emerging clusters are consistent with reactivation of basement rooted faults

tectonothermal history of the basement rocks in the western zone of the north china craton and its tectonic implications the basement of the north china craton can be divided into the eastern central and western zones based on lithological structural metamorphic and geochronological data the western zone comprises two different petrotectonic units archaean tonalitic trondhjemitic granodioritic ttg grey gneisses and metamorphic mafic rocks and palaeoproterozoic khondalite series the former is characterized by isobaric cooling ibc type anticlockwise p t paths in the north northwestern part of the zone and near isothermal decompression itd type clockwise p t paths in the eastern part adjacent to the central zone on the other hand the tectonothermal evolution of palaeoproterozoic khondalite series rocks is characterized exclusively by nearly isothermal decompression following the peak of metamorphism and then cooling defining clockwise p t paths the archaean ttg gneisses and associated mafic rocks with anticlockwise metamorphic p t paths reflects an origin related to underplating and intrusion of mantle derived magmas which may be derived from mantle plumes they represent a late archaean continental block in the western part of the north china craton the palaeoproterozoic khondalite series rocks represent passive continental margin deposits they were metamorphosed and deformed in the late palaeoproterozoic during the amalgamation of the western continental block with another continental block in the east part of the north china craton the itd type clockwise p t t paths of the palaeoproterozoic khondalite series rocks record the tectonothermal histories of the collision of the western and eastern continental blocks which resulted in the final assembly of the north china craton at c 1800 ma

persistent north pacific circulation anomalies and the tropical intraseasonal oscillation abstract a composite analysis of multiyear 1985 93 global reanalyses produced by the ncep ncar and the nasa dao is used to show that the development of persistent north pacific pnp circulation anomalies during nh winter is linked to tropical intraseasonal oscillations the development is initiated over the tropical west pacific by anomalous convection characterized by an east west dipole structure one to two weeks prior to the extratropical onset time in both reanalyses as tropical heating moves eastward toward the central pacific anomalous divergent outflow associated with the local hadley circulation generates an anomalous rossby wave sink source in the subtropics consistent with the retraction extension of the pacific jet prior to onset the signature of the forced anomalies is a pair of cyclonic anticyclonic circulation anomalies centered near the node of the tropical heating dipole wave trains extending from the region of anomalous convection into the extratropics set the stage for th

response of the zonally asymmetric flow to time dependent tropical heating abstract an atmospheric general circulation model is used to study the impact of idealized zonally propagating tropical heating anomalies on the low frequency variability in the north pacific region the propagating heating is designed to mimic the thermal forcing associated with the madden julian oscillation mjo results are examined by separating the forced response from other variability and by comparing with runs employing fixed phase stationary heating anomalies for both the forced and free circulations the main modes of variability consist of a zonal expansion and retraction of the east asian jet the effective rossby wave forcing associated with the heating is dominated by the advection term and located in the subtropics in the regions of strong absolute vorticity gradients compared with cases using stationary forcing the response to the propagating forcing is weaker and of different phase indicating that the 40 day period used for the propagating anomalies is too short to allow the develo

a late archean foreland fold and thrust belt in the north china craton implications for early collisional tectonics abstract the archean north china craton is divided into the western and eastern blocks along the central orogenic belt a 1600 km long archean foreland basin and thrust belt fringes the eastern side of the central orogenic belt rocks in the orogen form tectonically stacked east vergent fold and thrust sheets including foreland basin sediments 2 50 ga ophiolitic melange and an island arc complex foreland basin sediments overlie a passive margin sequence and include a 2 50 ga deep water turbidite sequence that grades upward and westward into shallow water molasse now disposed in structurally imbricated east verging thrusts and asymmetric folds that gradually migrated craton ward with deformation uplift and erosion of the orogen there is a strong linked relationship of the formation of the foreland basin to collision of the east and west blocks of the north china craton along the central orogenic belt at 2 50 ga the qinglong foreland basin and central orogenic belt of the north china craton represents one of the best preserved archean orogen to craton transitions in the world its classic internal to external zonation and flexural response to loading demonstrate that convergent tectonics in the archean were broadly similar to phanerozoic convergent margin processes

stress magnitudes in the basel enhanced geothermal system abstract this paper presents the results of an evaluation of stress magnitudes in the granitic egs reservoir in basel switzerland the profile of minimum principal horizontal stress shmin is constrained by hydraulic tests but the magnitude of the maximum horizontal principal stress shmax is uncertain here we derive estimates for shmax by analysing breakout width data from an acoustic televiewer logs run in the granitic basement section of the bs 1 borehole some 81 of the borehole in the granite is affected by breakouts the approach employed to derive shmax magnitude from the estimated breakout widths is taking into account all stress components at the borehole wall including the remnant thermal stress arising from the cooling of the borehole wall by the drilling in bs 1 breakouts width tends to decrease with depth assuming there is no significant systematic change in the strength characteristics of the rock along the length of the hole for which there is no evidence the large scale trend has the consequence of implying a small gradient of the shmax profile a low shmin gradient was also implied by a stress analysis that additionally considered the occasionally coincident presence of drilling induced tension fractures the absolute values of shmax depend upon the failure criterion used criteria that consider the strengthening effect of the intermediate stress mogi coulomb and hoek brown 3d yield profiles that violate frictional limits on the strength of the crust above 4 km whereas the profiles of the mohr coulomb and rankine criteria do not the mohr coulomb criteria profiles indicate a trend in shmax from favoring strike slip faulting above 4200 m to strike slip normal faulting below this is consistent with focal mechanisms recorded during the reservoir stimulation which show a mix of strike slip and normal faulting throughout the depth range considered

the xiong er volcanic belt at the southern margin of the north china craton petrographic and geochemical evidence for its outboard position in the paleo mesoproterozoic columbia supercontinent abstract the xiong er volcanic belt covering an area of more than 60 000 km 2 along the southern margin of the north china craton has long been considered an intra continental rift zone and recently interpreted as part of a large igneous province formed by a mantle plume that led to the breakup of the paleo mesoproterozoic supercontinent columbia however such interpretations cannot be accommodated by lithology mineralogy geochemistry and geochronology of the volcanic rocks in the belt lithologically the xiong er volcanic belt is dominated by basaltic andesite and andesite with minor dacite and rhyolite different from rock associations related to continental rifts or mantle plumes which are generally bimodal and dominated by mafic components however they are remarkably similar to those rock associations in modern continental margin arcs in some of the basaltic andesites and andesites amphibole is a common phenocryst phase suggesting the involvement of h 2 o rich fluids in the petrogenesis of the xiong er volcanic rocks geochemically the xiong er volcanic rocks fall in the calc alkaline series and in most tectono magmatic discrimination diagrams the majority of the xiong er volcanic rocks show affinities to magmatic arcs in the primitive mantle normalized trace element diagrams the xiong er volcanic rocks show enrichments in the lile and lree and negative nb ta ti anomalies similar to arc related volcanic rocks produced by the hydrous melting of metasomatized mantle wedge nd isotope compositions of the xiong er volcanic rocks suggest that 5 15 older crust has been transferred into the upper lithospheric mantle by subduction related recycling during archean to paleoproterozoic time available shrimp and la icp ms u pb zircon age data indicate that the xiong er volcanic rocks erupted intermittently over a protracted interval from 1 78 ga through 1 76 1 75 ga and 1 65 ga to 1 45 ga though the major phase of the volcanism occurred at 1 78 1 75 ga such multiple and intermittent volcanism is inconsistent with a mantle plume driven rifting event but is not uncommon in ancient and existing continental margin arcs taken together the xiong er volcanic belt was most likely a paleo mesoproterozoic continental magmatic arc that formed at the southern margin of the north china craton similar paleo mesoproterozoic continental magmatic arcs were also present at the southern and southeastern margins of laurentia the southern margin of baltica the northwestern margin of amonzonia and the southern and eastern margins of the north australia craton which are considered to represent subduction related episodic outbuilding on the continental margins of the paleo mesoproterozoic supercontinent columbia therefore in any configuration of the supercontinent columbia the southern margin of the north china craton could not have been connected to any other continental block as proposed in a recent configuration but must have faced an open ocean whose lithosphere was subducted beneath the southern margin of the north china craton

polyphase deformation of the fuping complex trans north china orogen structures shrimp u pb zircon ages and tectonic implications abstract the fuping complex is located in the central part of the trans north china orogen tnco a paleoproterozoic collisional belt along which the eastern and western blocks were assembled to form the north china craton three stages of deformation d 1 d 3 have been identified in the fuping complex d 1 formed tight to isoclinal folds f 1 penetrative foliation s 1 and mineral lineation l 1 which resulted from the early nw se orientated thrusting and shearing d 2 progressively overprinted d 1 and was dominated by mostly nw se shortening and top to the se e thrusting under a compressive environment d 1 and d 2 occurred in association with the peak metamorphism m 1 d 3 occurred during the exhumation after the crustal thickening producing regional scale nww see trending open folds f 3 and associated low angle detachment faults and was responsible for the isothermal decompression m 2 metamorphism of the complex following the d 3 deformation the complex was exhumed to shallow crustal levels where the rocks underwent the retrogressive cooling m 3 metamorphism syn tectonic leucocratic dykes are widespread in the fuping complex two leucocratic dykes that did not experience d 1 but underwent d 2 yield shrimp zircon ages of 1843 12 ma and 1844 18 ma which indicate that d 1 must have occurred at some time earlier than 1844 ma whereas d 2 must have occurred at some time later than this age two weakly deformed post d 2 leucocratic dykes yield shrimp zircon ages of 1817 14 ma and 1815 45 ma suggesting that the d 2 deformation occurred in the period 1843 1815 ma the new shrimp data indicate that the collision related deformation of the fuping complex must have occurred in the paleoproterozoic not in the late archean structural and geochronological data presented in this study in association with previous lithological and geochemical data suggest that the fuping complex may have been located in the hinterland of an eastward subduction zone and underwent intensive deformation and metamorphism involved in the final collision between the western and eastern blocks at 1 85 ga

source analysis of a potential hydraulic fracturing induced earthquake near fox creek alberta an earthquake with a reported magnitude of 4 4 ml was detected on 13 june 2015 in western central alberta canada this event was the third felt earthquake this year near fox creek a shale gas exploration region our results from full moment tensor inversions of regional broadband data show a strong strike slip mechanism with near vertical fault plane solutions the decomposition of the moment tensor solution is overwhelmingly double couple while only a modest 20 contribution is attributed to compensated linear vector dipole the depth of this earthquake is 3 4 km near the base of the sedimentary layer and the moment magnitude m 3 9 of this event is considerably smaller than the initial reported ml value the hypocenter location depth and mechanism are favorable to a possible association between this earthquake and hydraulic fracturing operations within the duvernay shale

focal mechanisms and the state of stress on the san andreas fault in southern california focal mechanisms have been determined from p wave first motion polarities for 138 small to moderate 2 6 m 4 3 earthquakes that occurred within 10 km of the surface trace of the san andreas fault in southern california between 1978 and 1985 on the basis of these mechanisms the southern san andreas fault has been divided into five segments with different stress regimes earthquakes in the fort tejon segment show oblique reverse sup on east west and northwest striking faults the mojave segment has earthquakes with oblique reverse and right lateral strikesup motion on northwest strikes the san bernardino segment has normal faulting earthquakes on north south striking planes while the banning segment has reverse strike sup and normal faulting events all occurring in the same area the earthquakes in the indio segment show strike slip and oblique normal faulting on northwest to north south striking planes these focal mechanism data have been inverted to determine how the stresses acting on the san andreas fault in southern california vary with position along strike of the fault one of the principal stresses is vertical in all of the regions the vertical stress is the minimum principal stress in fort tejon and mojave the intermediate principal stress in banning and indio and the maximum principal stress in san bernardino the orientations of the horizontal principal stresses also vary between the regions the trend of the maximum horizontal stress rotates over 35 from n15 w at fort tejon to n20 at indio except for the san bernardino segment the trend of the maximum horizontal stress is at a constant angle of about 65 to the local strike of the san andreas fault implying a weak fault the largest change in the present stress state occurs at the end of the rupture zone of the 1857 fort tejon earthquake it appears that the 1857 rupture ended when it propagated into an area of low stress amplitude possibly caused by the 15 angle between the strikes of the san jacinto and san andreas faults the strong correlation between present state of stress and segmentation in previous earthquakes suggests that the stress state is important in controlling rupture propagation

archean blocks and their boundaries in the north china craton lithological geochemical structural and p t path constraints and tectonic evolution an examination of lithological geochemical geochronological structural and metamorphic p t path data suggests that the basement of the north china craton can be divided into eastern and western blocks separated by major crustal boundaries that roughly correspond with the limits of a 300 km wide zone called the trans north china orogen the eastern block consists predominantly of late archean domiform tonalitic trondhjemitic granodioritic ttg batholiths surrounded by anastomosing networks and linear belts of open to tight synforms of minor volcanic and sedimentary rocks metamorphosed from greenschist to granulite facies at 2 5 ga with anticlockwise p t paths some early to middle archean rocks are locally present in the eastern block but their tectonic history is unclear due to reworking by the 2 5 ga tectonothermal event the western block has a late archean assemblage structural style and metamorphic history similar to that of the eastern block but it differs in the absence of early to middle archean assemblages and in being overlain by and interleaved with paleoproterozoic khondalites which were affected by a 1 8 ga metamorphic event involving clockwise p t paths a mantle plume model is proposed for the formation and evolution of late archean basement rocks in the eastern and western blocks based on a combination of extensive exposure of ttg gneisses affinities of mafic rocks to continental tholeiitic basalts presence of voluminous komatiitic rocks dominant diaprism related domiform structures anticlockwise p t paths and a short time span from the primary emplacement of ttg and ultramafic to mafic rocks until the onset of regional metamorphism between the two blocks is the trans north china orogen which is bounded by two major fault systems and is composed of late archean to paleoproterozoic ttg gneisses and granitoids interleaved with abundant sedimentary and volcanic rocks that are geochemically interpreted as having developed in magmatic arc and intra arc basin environments these rocks underwent multiple phases of compressional deformation and peak high pressure metamorphism followed by rapid exhumation during the late paleoproterozoic at 1 8 ga as a result of collision between the eastern and western blocks resulting in the amalgamation of the north china craton

u pb and hf isotopic study of zircons of the helanshan complex constrains on the evolution of the khondalite belt in the western block of the north china craton abstract the helanshan complex is located at the westernmost segment of the khondalite belt a continent continent collisional belt along which the yinshan block in the north collided with the ordos block in the south to form the western block of the north china craton the complex consists of s type granites and high grade pelitic granulite gneiss felsic paragneiss quartzite calc silicate rock and marble together called the khondalite series rocks la q icp ms u pb geochronology and la mc icp ms lu hf isotopic data of zircons combined with cathodoluminescence cl imaging enable the resolution of magmatic and metamorphic events that can be directed towards understanding the formation and evolution of the khondalite belt in the western block of the north china craton cl images reveal the coexistence of magmatic type detrital zircons and metamorphic zircons in most of the khondalite series rocks of which the metamorphic zircons occur as either single grains or overgrowth rims surrounding and truncating magmatic type detrital zircon cores la q icp ms u pb analyses on magmatic type detrital zircons reveal two distinct age populations with one in the archaean 2 85 2 53 ga and the other in the palaeoproterozoic 2 2 2 0 ga suggesting that the sedimentary protoliths of the khondalite series rocks in the helanshan complex must have been deposited at some time after 2 0 ga the hf analyses show that the archaean detrital zircons possess negative ehf t values from 7 64 to 0 15 with depleted mantle model ages ranging from 3 34 to 3 10 ga this implies the existence of a paleo mesoarchaean 3 34 3 10 ga crust in the western block which underwent a recycling event in the period 2 85 2 53 ga nearly all palaeoproterozoic 2 2 2 0 ga detrital zircons possess positive ehf t values 0 86 9 38 with depleted mantle model ages of 2 45 2 15 ga suggesting a significant crustal growth event in the western block in the palaeoproterozoic metamorphic zircons yield two groups of age with one at 1 95 ga and the other at 1 87 ga of which the former is considered as the timing of the collision between the yinshan and ordos blocks to form the western block whereas the latter is consistent with the age of 1 86 ga from two s type granites which are considered to have formed by the partial melting of pelitic granulites gneisses at the stage of the exhumation of the helanshan complex

the role of mjo and mid latitude fronts in the south china sea summer monsoon onset previous studies have suggested that the south china sea scs summer monsoon onset is concurrent with the arrival of a 30 60 day northward propagating trough on the other hand from a synoptic viewpoint some studies pointed out that the arrival of a mid latitude front may be the triggering mechanism of the scssm onset this study attempts to link these two viewpoints and to investigate their relative role in inducing the scssm onset composites of low level zonal winds geopotential heights and temperatures during the 1991 1999 scssm onsets based on the european centre for medium range weather forecast era 40 data indicate that both the madden and julian oscillation mjo kelvin waves and mid latitude trough are apparently involved in the onset the mjo kelvin waves play a major role in inducing the large scale easterly westerly shift over the central scs while the effect of the acceleration of westerlies ahead of the mid latitude trough is limited to the northern scs only numerical experiments using a regional climate model further demonstrate that the mjo kelvin waves control the timing of the onset by changing the background meridional geopotential height gradient over the scs when the mjo is at its peak phase over the maritime continent it imposes a positive meridional geopotential height gradient over the scs such that easterly winds are induced which significantly reduces the strength of a mid latitude trough after the equatorial convection has dissipated a rossby wave response is induced leading to the formation of a northward moving trough when this trough moves northward the meridional geopotential height gradient is reversed and westerly winds are induced at the same time if a mid latitude trough arrives in south china the westerlies associated with the mid latitude trough will strengthen because of the background meridional geopotential height gradient which gives the impression that both the northward moving trough and mid latitude trough are in phase and work together to induce the onset

stress field variations in the swiss alps and the northern alpine foreland derived from inversion of fault plane solutions 1 this study is devoted to a systematic analysis of the state of stress of the central european alps and northern alpine foreland in switzerland based on focal mechanisms of 138 earthquakes with magnitudes between 1 and 5 the most robust feature of the results is that the azimuth of the minimum compressive stress s3 is generally well constrained for all data subsets and always lies in the ne quadrant however within this quadrant the orientation of s3 changes systematically both along the structural strike of the alpine chain and across it the variation in stress along the mountain belt from ne to sw involves a progressive counterclockwise rotation of s3 and is most clear in the foreland where it amounts to 45 50 this pattern of rotation is compatible with the disturbance to the stress field expected from the indentation of the adriatic block into the central european plate possibly together with buoyancy forces arising from the strongly arcuate structure of the moho to the immediate west of our study area across the alps the variation in azimuth of s3 is defined by a progressive counterclockwise rotation of about 45 from the foreland in the north across the helvetic domain to the penninic nappes in the south and is accompanied by a change from a slight predominance of strike slip mechanisms in the foreland to a strong predominance of normal faulting in the high parts of the alps the observed rotation can be explained by the perturbation of the large scale regional stress by a local uniaxial deviatoric tension with a magnitude similar to that of the regional differential stress and with an orientation perpendicular to the strike of the alpine belt the tensile nature and orientation of this stress is consistent with the spreading stress expected from lateral density changes due to a crustal root beneath the alps

a revised crustal stress orientation database for canada abstract the canadian database on contemporary crustal stress has not been revised systematically in the past two decades here we present the results of our new compilation that contains 514 new data records for the orientation data of maximum compressive horizontal stress and 188 data records that were re assessed in total the canadian stress database has now 1667 data records which is an increase of about 45 from these data a new canadian stress map as well as one for the province of alberta is presented to analyse the stress pattern we use the quasi median on the circle as a smoothing algorithm that generates a smoothed stress map of the maximum compressive horizontal stress orientation on a regular grid the newly introduced quasi interquartile range on the circle estimates the spreading of the data and is used as a measure for the wave length of the stress pattern the result of the hybrid wavelength analysis confirms that long spatial wavelength stress patterns 1000 km exist in large areas in canada the observed stress pattern is transmitted through the intra plate regions the results reveal that shorter spatial wave length variation of the maximum compressive horizontal stress orientation of less than 200 km prevails particularly in south eastern and western canada regional stress sources such as density contrasts active fault systems crustal structures etc might have a significant impact in these regions in contrast to these variations the observed stress pattern in the alberta basin is very homogeneous and mainly controlled by plate boundary forces and body forces the influence of curvature of the rocky mountains salient in southern alberta is minimal the present day horizontal stress orientations determined herein have important implications for the production of hydrocarbons and geothermal energy in the alberta basin

zircon geochronology and metamorphic evolution of mafic dykes in the hengshan complex of northern china evidence for late palaeoproterozoic extension and subsequent high pressure metamorphism in the north china craton abstract magmatic and metamorphic zircons have been dated from ductilely deformed gabbroic dykes defining a dyke swarm and signifying crustal extension in the northern part of the hengshan complex of the north china craton these dykes now occur as boudins and deformed sheets within migmatitic tonalitic trondhjemitic granodioritic and granitic gneisses and are conspicuous due to relics of high pressure granulite or even former eclogite facies garnet pyroxene bearing assemblages shrimp ages for magmatic zircons from two dykes reflect the time of dyke emplacement at 1915 ma whereas metamorphic zircons dated by both shrimp and evaporation techniques are consistently in the range 1848 1888 ma the youngest granitoid gneiss yet dated in the hengshan has an emplacement age of 1872 17 ma these results complement recent geochronological studies from the neighbouring wutai and fuping complexes to the se of the hengshan showing that a crustal extension event occurred in the late palaeoproterozoic this preceded a major high pressure collision type metamorphic event in the central part of the north china craton that occurred in the palaeoproterozoic and not in the late archaean as previously thought our data support recent suggestions that the north china craton experienced a major craton wide orogenic event in the late palaeoproterozoic after which it became cratonized and acted as a stable block

crustal stress field in southern california and its implications for fault mechanics we present a new high spatial resolution image of stress orientation in southern california based on the inversion of earthquake focal mechanisms we use this image to study the mechanics of faulting in the plate boundary region the stress field contains significant spatial heterogeneity which in some cases appears to be a result of the complexity of faulting and in other cases appears to be a cause temporal changes in the stress field are also observed primarily related to major earthquakes the observed 15 10 rotation of the stress axes due to the 1992 m7 3 landers mainshock implies that the deviatoric stress magnitude in the crust is low of the order of 10 mpa this suggests that active faults in southern california are weak the maximum principal stress axis near the san andreas fault is often at 50 to the fault strike indicating that the shear stress on the fault is comparable to the deviatoric stress the san andreas in southern california may therefore be a weak fault in a low strength crust

gravity induced stresses near topography of small slope topographic modification of gravity induced near surface stresses results in significant departures from a lithostatic state a perturbation scheme provides approximate analytical solutions for plane strain of an elastic half space with an irregularly shaped free surface of small characteristic slope e the leading order effect of the topography is equivalent to that of a distributed normal load on a plane boundary and the correction at order e is due to a distributed shear traction on a plane boundary in the near surface region these two effects contribute at the same order to departures from the lithostatic stress field the contribution of the shearing has been neglected in most previous analyses we present explicit solutions for several particular geometries a symmetric ridge or valley an adjacent ridge and valley a shelf and a sharp crested ridge notable features include 1 for a sufficiently steep ridge the horizontal normal stress is compressive at the crest and decreases possibly becoming tensile with depth 2 large horizontal tension is induced in a valley bottom at greater depth these effects vanish and the stresses approach lithostatic similar analysis is applied to a half space under a far field tectonic compression or tension the result shows that the leading order effect of topography is equivalent to a distributed shear traction on a plane surface regional horizontal compression can be significantly reduced or even change to tension in the neighborhood of a topographic high

incompatible stress regimes from geological and geomechanical datasets can they be reconciled an example from the carnarvon basin western australia abstract knowledge of the in situ stress field is essential in petroleum basins as it exerts a prime control over seal integrity fracture stimulation wellbore stability and fluid flow previous geomechanical analysis of australia s carnarvon basin the continent s premier hydrocarbon region highlights a normal to strike slip fault stress regime however neotectonic evidence and contemporary seismicity suggest the possibility of a strike slip to reverse fault stress regime we attempt to reconcile these conflicting datasets through new analysis of the in situ stresses principal stress magnitudes and orientations were defined with data from 76 previously unanalysed petroleum wells wellbore image logs yield a maximum horizontal stress orientation of 113 n consistent with modelling of the stress field throughout the indo australian plate vertical stress magnitudes are estimated to range from 20 mpa km 1 to 22 4 mpa km 1 leak off tests lot from 42 wells are analysed using two methodologies one assuming tensile failure as traditionally accepted the other assuming shear failure as outlined by couzens schultz and chan 2010 and result in two different sets of horizontal stress magnitude estimates traditional interpretation of lots results in a minimum horizontal stress gradient of 16 8 mpa km 1 and a maximum horizontal stress gradient of 21 8 mpa km 1 the new method for lot interpretation results in a minimum horizontal stress gradient of 18 1 mpa km 1 and a maximum horizontal stress gradient of 25 4 mpa km 1 inclined natural fractures observed at lot depths supports application of the new method of lot interpretation traditional interpretation of stress magnitudes implies a normal to strike slip fault stress regime while the new method implies a strike slip fault stress regime this latter interpretation is favoured by the authors as it allows for a reconciliation of the geological and geomechanical datasets the assessment undertaken herein allows for reinterpretation of stress magnitudes in seismically active basins hosting differing geomechanical and neotectonic regimes potentially altering existing understanding of seal integrity fracture stimulation wellbore stability and fluid flow

a comparison of u pb and hf isotopic compositions of detrital zircons from the north and south liaohe groups constraints on the evolution of the jiao liao ji belt north china craton the jiao liao ji orogenic belt is one of the important paleoproterozoic mobile belts in the north china craton ncc and its central segment consists of the north and south liaohe groups and the liaoji granitoids the north and south liaohe groups consist of sedimentary and volcanic successions metamorphosed from greenschist to lower amphibolite facies and the liaoji granitoids are divisible into 2 2 2 1 ga pre tectonic monzogranitic gneisses and 1 88 1 85 ga post tectonic porphyritic monzogranites and alkaline syenites combined with cathodoluminescence cl imaging we report la icp ms laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry u pb and hf isotopic data for detrital zircons from the north and south liaohe groups zircons grains from both groups have igneous zircon cores that yielded two u pb age populations at 2 0 2 2 ga major and 2 5 ga minor indicating that their provenances were similarly dominated by paleoproterozoic liaoji granitoids and late archean basement rocks some structureless zircon rims in both groups yield concordant or upper intercept ages 1 9 ga interpreted as the peak metamorphic age of the two groups these results suggest that both groups were deposited in the period 2 0 1 9 ga shortly after the emplacement of the liaoji granitoids moreover zircons from both groups have similar hf model age peaks t c dm peaks at 2 66 2 75 ga and 2 80 3 00 ga

deformation history of the hengshan complex implications for the tectonic evolution of the trans north china orogen structural analysis indicates that the hengshan complex underwent five distinct episodes of deformation d1 d5 the d1 episode formed small isoclinal folds f1 penetrative axial planar foliations s1 and mineral stretching lineations l1 d1 fabrics were reworked by following d2 deformation associated with d2 was the development of nw verging asymmetric folds and accompanying thrust faults both d1 and d2 resulted from crustal thickening and coherent with prograde and peak metamorphism d2 deformation was followed by transpressional dextral shearing d3 including top to nw oblique slip shearing and nne ssw dextral strike slip shearing ongoing collision led to development of the zhujiafang ductile shear zone d4 a near e w trending high strain belt across the hengshan complex d5 deformation is characterized by f5 open folds and associated normal faults probably related to exhumation of the complex structural patterns of the hengshan complex can place important insights into a recently proposed tectonic model suggesting that an ocean between the eastern and western blocks underwent eastward directed subduction beneath the western margin of the eastern block and closure of this ocean finally led to collision between the two blocks to form the coherent north china craton

inferring stress from faulting from early concepts to inverse methods abstract we review the evolution of concepts on and methods of estimating the state of stress from fault movements theories of failure in isotropic materials suggested a simple geometrical construction of optimal principal stress directions from a fault plane and its associated slip these optimal directions align shear stress and slip directions and maximize the difference between shear stress and frictional resistance on the fault plane optimal stress directions for calcite twinning are obtained by a similar construction with the difference that they maximize shear stress force representation of seismic sources independently introduced pressure p and tension t axes at positions that also maximize shear stress on both nodal planes frictional slip theory and the constraint that slip and shear stress directions be parallel allowed to address reactivation of pre existing faults this suggested that stress could also be inverted from reactivated fault and slip data or earthquake focal mechanisms early methods relied on geometrical constructions as a substitute for calculations whereas later methods relied on software as these calculations became tractable with the help of computers similar methods were developed for the inversion of stress from crystal twin gliding with non optimal geometry with a different criterion that relies on a threshold of the component of shear stress along the gliding line even though these methods seek a common stress tensor compatible with fault and slip data their main use is to separate polyphase data into homogeneous subsets and help deciphering complex tectonic histories fault and slip data can also be analyzed to constrain the strain rather than the stress tensor in most cases this involves a summation and yields an average strain for the considered rock volume stress inversion thus appears better suited for differentiating heterogeneous data whereas strain analysis appears better suited for homogenizing them

hydraulic fracturing volume is associated with induced earthquake productivity in the duvernay play a sharp increase in the frequency of earthquakes near fox creek alberta began in december 2013 in response to hydraulic fracturing using a hydraulic fracturing database we explore relationships between injection parameters and seismicity response we show that induced earthquakes are associated with completions that used larger injection volumes 10 4 to 10 5 cubic meters and that seismic productivity scales linearly with injection volume injection pressure and rate have an insignificant association with seismic response further findings suggest that geological factors play a prominent role in seismic productivity as evidenced by spatial correlations together volume and geological factors account for 96 of the variability in the induced earthquake rate near fox creek this result is quantified by a seismogenic index modified frequency magnitude distribution providing a framework to forecast induced seismicity

geophysical log responses and their correlation with bed to bed stress contrasts in paleozoic rocks appalachian plateau new york a 1 km profile of in situ stress and geophysical log data was acquired in the wilkins well to study the relationship between rock properties and in situ stress contrasts the wilkins well penetrates devonian clastic rocks on the appalachian plateau near the town of south canisteo new york open hole hydraulic fracture stress measurements were made in stratigraphic sequences where geophysical logs indicated significant bed to bed variations in elastic and lithologic properties analysis of stress magnitudes and interval averaged geophysical data shows that principal horizontal stress magnitudes correlate directly with elastic stiffness and inversely with clay content a similar relation is found for older paleozoic strata penetrated by a well at auburn new york correlations between stress magnitude and geophysical properties observed in the wilkins and auburn wells provide strong evidence that bed to bed stress variations arise from a uniform ene wsw directed strain acting on beds of different young s modulus rather than from variations in rock shear strength because of their high young s modulus sandstones siltstones and limestones in the northern appalachian basin are likely to be stronger barriers to hydraulic fracture propagation than shales porosity logs in the wilkins well show that the large decrease in horizontal stress found at the base of the rhine street formation occurs where shales are less compacted the correlation with undercompaction is consistent with a paleo overpressure drainage mechanism as the cause for the stress decrease

shrimp u pb zircon geochronology of the huai an complex constraints on late archean to paleoproterozoic crustal accretion and collision of the trans north china orogen

drilling induced tensile wall fractures implications for determination of in situ stress orientation and magnitude abstract detailed investigation of failure of the borehole wall in two scientific drilling projects the german ktb kontinentales tiefbohrprogramm der bundesrepublik deutschland and the european geothermal research project at soultz sous forets france has lead to new insight in the phenomena of tensile fractures induced in the wellbore wall during drilling comparison of the orientation of the fractures with the orientation of the horizontal principal stress known from breakout and hydraulic fracturing analysis demonstrates that these fractures are reliable indicators of the orientation of the maximum horizontal principal stress s h a model for the initiation of the fractures is presented which points out the important influences of a the tectonic stress state b increased mud pressures during drilling operation and c thermal stresses induced by circulation of relatively cold drilling mud analysis of drilling induced fractures in the gpk1 borehole at soultz sous forets where the magnitude of s h is known from hydraulic fracturing experiments demonstrates the validity of this model for the initiation of the fractures further a new method is proposed to estimate the magnitude of s h from the occurrence of drilling induced fractures and knowledge of thermally induced stress and pumping pressure during drilling the method is successfully applied to both ktb boreholes an independent method to estimate the magnitude of s h based on the analytical calculation of the stress intensity factor for drilling induced fractures taking into consideration both increased mud pressure and thermal stress is also presented application of this method confirms the results derived with the analysis described above additionally the evaluation of the orientation of the fractures with respect to the wellbore axis indicates that over major depth sections of the investigated wells the vertical stress is a principal stress

further evidence for 1 85 ga metamorphism in the central zone of the north china craton shrimp u pb dating of zircon from metamorphic rocks in the lushan area henan province abstract this paper reports shrimp zircon u pb dating of precambrian supracrustal and granitic rocks from the lushan area henan province in the southern portion of the central zone also referred to as the trans north china orogen of the north china craton a graphite garnet sillimanite gneiss sample tw0006 1 of the shangtaihua group gives a range of inherited zircon ages from 2 73 to 2 26 ga and a metamorphic zircon age of 1 84 0 07 ga a garnet bearing gneissic granitoid sample twj358 1 which is considered to intrude the shangtaihua group gives a magmatic zircon age of 2 14 0 02 ga and a metamorphic zircon age of 1 87 ga the metamorphic zircon ages of 1 87 1 84 ga obtained in this study indicate that an important tectonothermal event occurred at the end of the paleoproterozoic in the lushan area this supports the southern continuation of a central zone in the north china craton that workers have recently considered to result from continent continent collision it is also evident that the shangtaihua group was formed during the paleoproterozoic between 2 26 and 2 14 ga and not during the archean as previously considered