Monitoring of oil-production-induced subsidence and uplift

A number of human activities associated with the petroleum industry are known to trigger or even induce anthropogenic earthquakes of varying magnitudes. Examples of the damages of the infrastructure in oil and gas fields due to production make clear the need to monitor processes in the field. Land surface deformation is one method that can yield insights into geodynamic processes. Knowledge of the processes can lead to mitigation approaches. This Master's thesis focuses on the application of geodetic techniques to study land-surface deformations associated with oil and gas production. In particular, it focuses on optimizing existing methodology based on the example of the data from one of the oilfields in the western part of Kazakhstan. The geodetic techniques used for this project include interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR), continuous and campaign global positioning system (GPS) surveying, precise leveling surveying, and gravimetric measurements. The data set, spanning 11 years, was reprocessed to improve the results of the existing standard processing procedures using more sophisticated software packages and reducing uncertainties and/or noise. The thesis also suggests the field-work protocols that may increase the accuracy of the measurements. The results of the project will allow the application of the developed methodology to the monitoring of oil-production-induced subsidence and uplift in the Republic of Kazakhstan and elsewhere.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2020

Author dc:creator

• Togaibekov, Anuar Zhanybekovich.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Thomas Herring.

• Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses may be protected by copyright. Please reuse MIT thesis content according to the MIT Libraries Permissions Policy, which is available through the URL provided.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/127149

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/127149