Keynote

The Geocritical-Rock Physics and Fracture-Seismic Mapping of Permeability in the Brittle Lithosphere

P.E. Malin
Research Professor, Duke University
PhD Geophysics, Princeton University
MS Marine Geophysics, Stanford University
BS Geophysics, Stanford University

Peter Eric Malin has nearly 40 years of experience in seismology and geophysical research - in both academic and industry settings. His MS research used seismic and potential field methods to map a foundered block of continental crust under the western Caribbean Sea. His PhD dissertation was on complex seismic wave propagation in the moon, using Apollo missions data. Since then his research has been in fault-zone, lithospheric, and energy reservoir seismology, using borehole seismology and instrumentation as observational tools. The common theme of fluid-flow in these topics has led to his work in the critical state physics and seismic mapping of permeability in the brittle lithosphere.

After graduate school, Malin worked extensively on the San Andreas fault and the lithospheric structure of southern California. He built and installing new types of borehole seismograph along the San Andreas, uncovering new fault guided and refracted seismic waves. He participated in and lead seismic reflection campaigns across the Southern Sierra Mountains and Mojave Desert, interpreting these data in terms of tilted lithospheric slabs, weakened in their deeper parts by hydrothermal fluids.

Malin began focused research on the seismology of hydrothermal systems at Coso Hot Springs in eastern California. He and lab members built and operated the borehole network there, helping guide reinjection using MEQs. Malin has led similar projects at Casa Diablo, Puna, Krafla and Wairakei, and other geothermal fields, where he helped develop fracture mapping using S-wave splitting. They installed the seismic monitoring system at Basel and studied the injection induced seismicity that caused the cancelation of this project. Based on the lessons learned there, Malin and associates successfully guided a similar EGS project in Espoo, Finland, without exceeding regulatory limits.

In addition to research and teaching at the University of California (UCSB) and Duke University, his professional endeavors include the founding of Sondi and Consultants in California, a borehole seismometer manufacturing, installation, and seismic monitoring service. Recently Malin served as Director of the Institute of Earth Science and Engineering - a research and development institute in Auckland, New Zealand. There he led IESE in the study of the lithosphere's fluid-flow physics and techniques for mapping its permeability fields. Collaborating with several other senior scientist, the latter work has led to the realization that fluid-filled fractures emit resonant seismic signal that can be map with 3-D reflection seismic equipment and processing techniques.

Since returning to the US, Malin has resumed both academic and industrial research on the connection between fluid flow in rock, seismicity, and the physics and seismic mapping of permeability in brittle rock. He has done summer-time research on them at the German Geosciences Center (GFZ) in Potsdam. Germany. He also founded the R&D company Advanced Seismic Instrumentation and Research (ASIR), which has participated in two basement Enhanced Geothermal System projects.