Hydroshearing Stimulation: Fracture Slip & Induced Seismicity

This simulator models the core reservoir-creation mechanism of an enhanced geothermal system: hydroshearing. A rock volume is seeded with hundreds of pre-existing, randomly oriented fractures sitting under a far-field stress state. Pump fluid down the central injection well and a pressure-diffusion front spreads outward; any fracture the front reaches has its effective normal stress reduced according to the Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion, and once shear stress overcomes frictional resistance it slips — turning red and radiating a small seismic event whose magnitude is computed from a circular-crack source model. Tune the wellhead pressure, the far-field differential stress, and the fracture friction coefficient to see how each governs the balance between reservoir stimulation and induced-seismicity risk, tracked live against a traffic-light protocol modeled on real EGS operating rules.