Publications Details

Unsupervised Clustering of Microseismic Events and Focal Mechanism Analysis at the CO₂ Injection Site in Decatur, Illinois

Willis, Rachel M.; Yoon, Hongkyu; Williams-Stroud, Sherilyn; Frailey, Scott M.; Silva, Josimar A.; Juanes, Ruben

Characterization of induced microseismicity at a carbon dioxide (CO₂) storage site is critical for preserving reservoir integrity and mitigating seismic hazards. We apply a multilevel machine learning (ML) approach that combines the nonnegative matrix factorization and hidden Markov model to extract spectral representations of microseismic events and cluster them to identify seismic patterns at the Illinois Basin-Decatur Project. Unlike traditional waveform correlation methods, this approach leverages spectral characteristics of first arrivals to improve event classification and detect previously undetected planes of weakness. By integrating ML-based clustering with focal mechanism analysis, we resolve small-scale fault structures that are below the detection limits of conventional seismic imaging. Our findings reveal temporal bursts of microseismicity associated with brittle failure, providing insights into the spatio-temporal evolution of fault reactivation during CO₂ injection. This approach enhances seismic monitoring capabilities at CO₂ injection sites by improving fault characterization beyond the resolution of standard geophysical surveys.