Patent ID: 9158021
Filing Date: 2015-10-13
Classification: G01V

Abstract:
1. A method for determining a volume of a discrete fracture network, comprising: detecting seismic signals deployed over an area of the subsurface to be evaluated during pumping of hydraulic fracturing fluid into at least one wellbore drilled through the area; in a computer, determining a hypocenter of each fracture induced by the pumping of the fracture fluid using the detected seismic signals; in the computer, determining a facture network using the determined hypocenters and seismic moments determined from the detected seismic signals, the determining a fracture network comprising determining a fracture volume associated with each hypocenter using the determined seismic moments; in the computer, determining a maximum value of a scaling factor based on a subset of the hypocenters having a highest cumulative seismic moment, the scaling factor determined by relating a pumped volume of the fracturing fluid with respect to the determined fracture volumes; in the computer, scaling dimensions of each fracture using the maximum value of the scaling factor; and in the computer, recalculating the fracture volumes using the scaled dimensions.