UC San Diego

In this dissertation, I use the finite element method to solve the fully coupled poroelastic time-dependent pore pressure and stress changes within the Earth's crust due to hydrological loads and wastewater injection in order to have an improved understanding of fluid-fault interactions, hazard associated with induced seismicity, and earthquake triggering processes. Chapter 1 is an introduction to the fundamental concepts of the role of fluids in faults, linear poroelasticity, and the primary means of characterizing fault instability for induced seismicity, which are all incorporated throughout the following chapters. Chapter 2 studies the Coulomb stress change induced by the hydrological loading of ancient Lake Cahuilla on the Southern San Andreas Fault. Chapter 3 studies induced seismicity associated with the the wastewater injection at the Raton Basin, CO while developing a universal hazard mitigation and fluid optimization methodology. Chapter 4 is another wastewater injection study for the Paradox Valley Unit, CO that incorporates machine learning techniques to decipher earthquake triggering mechanisms associated with induced seismicity.