Downhole microseismic monitoring of shale deposits: Case study from northern Poland

Abstract

Microseismic monitoring has become a standard technique to map the development of hydraulic fracturing. This study is a case study of a downhole monitoring of the hydraulic fracturing in a lateral well in Northern Poland. The downhole monitoring array detected a large number of microseismic events indicating successful development of a hydraulic fracture. We show evidence that some stages interacted with the pre-existing natural fault system also mapped from surface active seismic imaging. The mapped hydraulic fracture shows a slight asymmetry of the developed hydraulic fractures. We show that the observed microseismicity is consistent with microseismicity usually observed in the North American shale gas stimulations.