Mark Zoback

Senior Executive Advisor

[email protected]

Mark Zoback is the Benjamin M. Page Professor of Geophysics and the Director of the Stanford Natural Gas Initiative at Stanford University.

He co-directs SCITS Stanford Center for Induced and Triggered Seismicity (SCITS) and the Stanford Center for Carbon Storage (SCCS). Dr. Zoback conducts research on in situ stress, fault mechanics, and reservoir geomechanics. He is the author/co-author of over 300 technical papers, holder of five patents and author of two books. Reservoir Geomechanics, published by Cambridge University Press in 2007 is now it’s 15th printing. His online course, also entitled Reservoir Geomechanics, has been completed by over 10,000 students around the world.

Mark’s book, Unconventional Reservoir Geomechanics, written with Arjun Kohli, was released by Cambridge Press in April, 2019. Dr. Zoback has received a number of awards and honors, including the 2008 Walter H. Bucher Medal of the American Geophysical Union. In 2011 he was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Engineering and in 2012 was elected to Honorary Membership of the Society of Exploration Geophysics. He was the 2013 recipient of the Louis Néel Medal of the European Geosciences Union and named an Einstein Chair Professor of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. In 2015 he received the Robert R. Berg Outstanding Research Award of the AAPG and in 2016 received the Outstanding Contribution to the Public Understanding of the Geosciences Award from the American Geological Institute.

Mark's posts

Automatic Report Generation in ResFracPro

This month’s release has a feature that I am particularly excited about – automatic report generation. The reports are generated automatically when a simulation finishes. Also, reports can be generated on-demand for simulations that have already been completed. The reports are highly customizable, allowing the user to generate different line plots, 3D visualizations, preview plots, and tabular data. The user can provide a template PPT, so that the report is made with their preferred PPT style.

Introducing ResFrac’s New Multisector Capability

This month’s ResFrac release has a ton of new capabilities. The most important is called ‘multisector’ – the ability to split different sections of the well across different computers. This capability provides a computationally efficient and practical way to run larger models and handle complex scenarios. Hats off to Danial Zeinabady and Michael Nole, who have been the main developers on this project. Beyond them, it’s been a big team effort, pulling in folks from cloud, simulator, and user-success. First, let’s review – what is sector modeling? Why do we need a ‘multi’ version of it?

Abstract illustration with multiple outlined maps over a green-to-yellow gradient and light beams.

The influence of well configuration on water loss in Enhanced Geothermal Systems

Recently, ‘water loss’ has been a hot topic of discussion for EGS. Fervo reported that they have been producing only 70% of the fluid volumes that they have been injecting at their Project Red. The FORGE project reported a roughly 10% water loss rate. Because projects will have finite water rights, these results have led to concern that growth of EGS will be limited by excessive water consumption. This is a valid concern, and water availability is a legitimate factor in site-selection and project engineering. However, I believe that the problem has been overstated.