2025 SPRING WEBINAR

Kevin L. McCormack, Ph.D. | Director of the Carbon Science Initiative

March 6, 2025

Geologic carbon sequestration, geomechanics, and induced seismicity for the energy transition

The injection of supercritical carbon dioxide into the subsurface is a proposed strategy to help mitigate the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Much of the science and engineering of the process of geologic carbon sequestration (GCS) is mature, but still the risks need to be assessed on a site-by-site basis. One technical risk is the chance of inducing earthquakes from the injection. This risk poses an existential threat for the industry where induced earthquakes could cause the social license to operate to be revoked, which lends importance to our work. In this webinar, we will explore a strategy that has been developed over the last several years to identify and characterize faults for their geomechanical stability and hence hazard for induced seismicity. While this science has been developed for GCS, it is applicable in other sectors such as wastewater disposal, enhanced geothermal, and hydrogen storage. The talk will be structured to begin with an overview of the present-day GCS landscape. Next, two case studies will be used to demonstrate the efficacy of the hazard forecasting. Following the forecasting will be a detailed description of the granularity analysis that allows hazard to be assessed based on the location within a fault. The fourth section of the talk will divert to discuss maximum magnitude prediction within injection operations, and finally, we will conclude with a synopsis and future directions. In sum, this talk will depict the state-of-the-art of induced seismicity hazard forecasting.

About Dr. McCormack

Dr. McCormack began his journey in higher education as an undergraduate in the Geology and Geophysics department at the University of Utah. Receiving many awards after his undergraduate work, including magna cum laude, he chose to pursue his doctoral degree under Mark Zoback at Stanford University. At Stanford, Dr. McCormack became an expert in geomechanics through guided curricula with Professor Zoback, coursework throughout the university, and plentiful discussions with faculty and peers. Upon graduation in 2020, Dr. McCormack returned to the University of Utah where he took a postdoctoral position in Professor Brian McPherson’s Carbon Science Initiative at the Energy and Geoscience Institute – the focus of this research group is geologic carbon sequestration. He has been working in this capacity for four years, and in April of 2024 was promoted to the Director of the Carbon Science Initiative where he finds joy in both scientific pursuits and day-to-day management.