Research

Funding: United States Department of Energy - Dr. McCormack was a Co-PI on one of the projects

Project Description: The San Juan Basin is an attractive target for geologic carbon sequestration due to its geology. A consideration prior to the injection of supercritical carbon dioxide is the potential for induced earthquakes and especially large induced earthquakes. I have studied the potential of such events and found certain faulting scenarios are more likely to host these ruptures. Furthermore, I have developed an algorithm that can account for curvature and roughness in the faults as opposed to using a planar approximation. This gives rise to a more accurate description of the induced seismic hazard.

Presentations: 

(1) McCormack, K. and McPherson, B. (2021). “Induced seismicity potential of the San Juan Basin CarbonSAFE deep saline carbon sequestration project based on probabilistic geomechanics.” American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting. (Talk)

(2) McCormack, K., Smith, P., Smith, S. (2022). “Bayesian inference of the discretization of faults: Implications to induced seismicity in carbon sequestration.” American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting. (Talk)

Publications:

(1) McCormack, K., Bratton, T., Chen, T., and McPherson, B. (2022). “Probabilistic assessment of uncertainties in induced seismic potential of the San Juan Basin CarbonSAFE Phase III deep saline carbon sequestration site.” Geophysics 87 (6), EN69-EN79.

(2) McCormack, K. and Smith, P. (2024). “Improved spatial understanding of induced seismicity hazard from the discretization of a curved fault surface.” Published but not indexed at Computational Geosciences.

Funding: United States Department of Energy and the Stanford Rock Physics and Borehole Geomechanics Project

Project Description: The Paradox Basin in southeastern Utah is home to hundreds of millions of barrels of oil, but to date, producing this oil has been extremely challenging, not least because of the complicated state of stress. My research has shown that over geologic time the stresses in the basin have relaxed to a nearly lithostatic and isostropic stress state. Furthermore, while much of the drilling operations are dedicated to finding regions of high fracture density, some of these regions may lend themselves to channeling away the oil over geologic time when the fractures are critically stressed. The circled red region in the top figure is an example of a location where the hydrocarbons possibly were unable to migrate.

Presentations:

(1) McCormack, K. (2022). “Using viscoelastic stress relaxation theory on core measure- ments to determine the least horizontal principal stress in the Paradox basin, southeastern Utah.” American Association of Petroleum Geologists - Rocky Mountain Section. (Talk)

(2) McCormack, K. and Zoback, M. (2021). “Layer-to-layer stress variations in the Niobrara Shale and Codell Sand, DJ Basin, CO: Implications for hydraulic fracturing.” American Rock Mechanics Association. (Talk)

Publications:

(1) McCormack, K., Vega-Ortiz, C., and McPherson, B. (2024). “Hydraulic fracturing in the overpressured, isotropically stressed Cane Creek Unit, Paradox Basin.” Under review at Interpretation.

(2) McCormack, K., McLennan, J., Jagniecki, E., and McPherson, B. (2023). “Discrete measurements of the least horizontal principal stress based on core data: An application of viscoelastic stress relaxation.” SPE Reservoir Evaluation and Engineering 26 (03), 827- 841.

(3) McCormack, K., Zoback, M., Kuang, W. (2021). “A Case Study of Vertical Hydraulic Fracture Growth, Stress Variations with Depth and Shear Stimulation in the Niobrara Shale and Codell Sand, DJ Basin, Colorado.” Interpretation 9 (4), SG59-SG69.

Funding: Stanford Center for Induced and Triggered Seismicity

Project Description: In many parts of the world, the direction of the maximum horizontal principal stress is unknown, which causes complications for drilling, completion, and induced seismicity assessments. Work that I did during my Ph.D. demonstrated the feasibility of using teleseismic receiver functions to invert for the shear-wave velocity anisotropy in the brittle, upper crust, revealing in some cases the direction of the stress.

Presentations:

(1) McCormack, K., Zoback, M., Fredericksen, A., Dvory, N. (2022). “A study to determine the orientation of the maximum horizontal principal stress using receiver functions.” American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting. (Poster)

(2) McCormack, K. and Zoback, M. (2019). “Crustal shear-wave velocity anisotropy measurements determined from P-wave receiver functions: A possible new tool for determining upper crustal stress orientation.” American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting. (Poster)

Publication:

(1) McCormack, K., Zoback, M., Frederiksen, A., and Dvory, N. (2023). “Shear-wave anisotropy measurements in the crust from receiver functions: An interplay of lower- and upper-crustal anisotropy.” Geosciences 13 (3), 79.

Funding: United States Department of Energy - Dr. McCormack was the PI of the project

Project Description: Typically carbon dioxide plumes in the subsurface are measured with surface-sourced waves, which have several disadvantages relative to waves sourced from within the earth. This project successfully designed a laboratory experiment to test certain capabilities of a downhole source for tomographic imaging.

Presentation:

(1) McCormack, K., Paulsson, B., Edelman, E., He, R., Moodie, N., and McPherson, B. (2023). “The design of a Downhole Source Tomography experiment for the detection of CO2 plumes in the subsurface.” 57th Rock Mechanics/Geomechanics Symposium. (Poster)

Publication:

(1) McCormack, K., Paulsson, B., Edelman, E., He, R., Moodie, N., and McPherson, B. (2023). “The design of a Downhole Source Tomography experiment for the detection of CO2 plumes in the subsurface.” 57th Rock Mechanics/Geomechanics Symposium.

Funding: National Science Foundation

Project Description: I started working with confined systems by analyzing the amount of stress relaxation that would take place over geologic time given viscoelastic deformation within sedimentary basins. That work found new light as part of the MUSE Energy Frontier Research Center in careful study of the nanoconfinement of fluids. Now, I am seeking funding from the National Science Foundation to generate a confinement-driven catalyst that will strengthen caprock/reservoir systems in geo-energy, which is shown for supercritical carbon dioxide above.

Publication:

(1) McCormack, K., Yoklavich, T., Li, J. and Xia, Y. (2024). “A review of the nanoconfinement of fluids: Lessons learned from experiments and simulations in the MUSE Energy Frontier Research Center.” Under review at Microporous and Mesoporous Materials.