Engineering Geology 163 (2013) 26–40

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Engineering Geology
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/enggeo

In-situ stress measurements and regional stress field assessment of the

Beishan area, China
X.G. Zhao a,⁎, J. Wang a, M. Cai b, L.K. Ma a, Z.H. Zong a, X.Y. Wang a, R. Su a, W.M. Chen a, H.G. Zhao a,
Q.C. Chen c, Q.M. An d, X.H. Qin c, M.Y. Ou c, J.S. Zhao c
a
CNNC Key Laboratory on Geological Disposal of High-level Radioactive Waste, Beijing Research Institute of Uranium Geology, Beijing 100029, China
b
Bharti School of Engineering, Laurentian University, Sudbury, ON P3E 2C6, Canada
c
Research Institute of Geomechanics, China Academy of Geological Sciences, Beijing 100080, China
d
Institute of Crustal Dynamics, China Earthquake Administration, Beijing 100085, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Knowledge of the in-situ stress field in the rock mass at depth is important to provide stress boundary con-
Received 19 November 2012 ditions for underground excavation design, stability evaluation, and the optimization of ground support sys-
Received in revised form 19 April 2013 tems. In the present study, in-situ stress measurement using hydraulic fracturing method is conducted in the
Accepted 26 May 2013
Beishan area in Gansu Province, China, a preferred candidate site for China's high-level radioactive waste re-
Available online 19 June 2013
pository. Information on the stress magnitudes and orientations in three sub-areas is obtained from 136 mea-
Keywords:
surement points in nine sub-vertical boreholes at depths ranging from 30 to 700 m, and the distribution
In-situ stress measurement characteristics of the in-situ stress field is analyzed. The pressure–time records obtained from the test inter-
Hydro-fracturing vals with pre-existing fractures are discussed according to the acoustic borehole televiewer (BHTV) images.
Stress field The measurement results indicate that the regional stress field is dominated by horizontal stress within most
Geological structure of the measurement depth ranges. A piecewise distribution of the principal stresses reveals approximately
Beishan area three stress domains with increasing depth. At shallow and medium depths, the stress fields are character-
Geological disposal ized by σH > σh > σv and σH > σv > σh, respectively, where σH, σh, and σv are maximum horizontal, mini-
mum horizontal, and vertical stresses, respectively. With further increase of depth, the maximum principal
stress changes from horizontal to vertical (i.e. σv > σH > σh). Fracture impression results reveal that the
maximum horizontal stress is dominantly oriented in the NNE–NEE direction, which is in agreement with
the orientation of regional tectonic stress field generated from movement of the Earth's tectonic plates. In ad-
dition, it is found that the orientations of σH are affected by the geological structures significantly.
© 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Deep geological disposal is internationally accepted as an appropriate
and feasible way to deal with high-level radioactive waste (HLW) gener-
ated from nuclear power plants and other nuclear facilities. The objective
of deep geological disposal is to ensure complete isolation of HLW from
our environment until its radiotoxicity has decayed to a non-hazardous
level. Over the past few decades, extensive research and development
programs associated with deep geological disposal of HLW have been
conducted by the international nuclear community. In some counties,
crystalline rocks are being considered as potential host rock types for
the construction of HLW repositories, and underground research labora-
tories (URLs) in crystalline rocks have been developed to carry out field
research into deep geological disposal of HLW (Christiansson and
Jansonb, 2003; Read, 2004; Hudson et al., 2011). In China, work on site se-
lection and characterization for the HLW repository has been carried out
⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 10 64932892.
E-mail address: xingguang100@126.com (X.G. Zhao).
since 1985. The efforts have been focused on the Beishan area in Gansu
Province of northwestern China, which contains many granite intrusions.
The geographical location and typical topography of the Beishan area are
presented in Fig. 1a and b, respectively.
During the site selection and characterization in the Beishan area, a
series of site investigations and tests have been conducted including
geological mapping, surface geophysical survey, borehole televiewer
logging, borehole radar survey, hydraulic testing, and in-situ stress mea-
surements. The in-situ stress measurements were performed using the
hydraulic fracturing (or hydro-fracturing) technique in nine deep
sub-vertical boreholes located in three sub-areas, i.e., Jiujing, Jijicao,
and Xinchang sub-areas. The hydro-fracturing method is a generally ac-
cepted approach to obtain the stress state of a rock mass at low to great
depths, and is considered suitable and practical at the early stage of an
engineering project when no underground access exists (Ljunggren et
al., 2003). A detailed summary of the hydro-fracturing technique and
its application to several practical cases around the world can be found
in Haimson (1978), Bjarnason et al. (1989), Tunbridge et al. (1989),
Haimson and Cornet (2003) and Zhao et al. (2005). Once an

0013-7952/$ – see front matter © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enggeo.2013.05.020
 X.G. Zhao et al. / Engineering Geology 163 (2013) 26–40 27

0 400 800 km
Urumchi Harbin

Sea of Japan
Beishan area
Beijing

Yellow Sea
Xi’an

Lhasa Shanghai Pacific Ocean

East China Sea

Quaternary Archaeozoic

Sea
Tertiary Granite

hina
Mesozoic Basalt

th C
Guangzhou

Sou
Palaeozoic Basic-ultrabasic rocks
Proterozoic Fault South China Sea
South China Sea Is.

Fig. 1. (a) Geographical location and (b) typical topography of the Beishan area in Gansu Province, China.
Modified from Wang (2010).

underground access is available, overcoring technique (Leeman and
Hayes, 1966; Oka and Bain, 1970), which is based on stress relief mech-
anism around a borehole, can be used to measure the in-situ stress ten-
sor (Hoek, 2007). Therefore, the use of the overcoring methods would
only be feasible at the stages of URL construction and operation.
The hydro-fracturing method determines the two principal stress
components in the planes perpendicular to the borehole axis. For verti-
cal boreholes, the vertical stress can be estimated from the weight of
rock mass overlaying the test location. In order to obtain 3D in-situ
stresses, measurement in three boreholes, which cross the same mea-
surement point and are not parallel to each other, is needed (Cai and
Peng, 2011). However, this condition is difficult to be realized in prac-
tice. A 3D determination of the stress tensor at a site is normally based
on the successful measurements using the overcoring-based and
modified techniques (Corthésy et al., 1994; Cai et al., 1995; Amadei
and Stephansson, 1997; Thompson and Chandler, 2004). Except for
the widely used hydro-fracturing and overcoring technologies, there
exists some other indirect methods such as borehole breakouts
(Zoback et al., 1985), acoustic emission measurements (Lavrov, 2003;
Lehtonen et al., 2012) and core disking analysis (Lim and Martin,
2010; Klee et al., 2011), which are based on the stress related phenom-
ena, for estimating the in-situ stress. However, under complicated
geological conditions, the reliabilities of these indirect methods are gen-
erally low compared with those by the hydro-fracturing and overcoring
techniques. Hence, these indirect methods may serve as a complement
to the direct measurement methods by virtue of the relative ease with
which the raw data for the stress determination can be recovered
(Ljunggren et al., 2003; Brady and Brown, 2004).
28 X.G. Zhao et al. / Engineering Geology 163 (2013) 26–40
The in-situ stress at a site is required for the design of under-
ground engineering structures employing, in particular, numerical
tools. Over the last three decades, advances in the use of numerical
methods in rock mechanics have been impressive, and nowadays al-
most all rock engineering design utilized numerical tools. Hence, to
provide reasonable modeling parameters of rock stresses and subse-
quently to optimize design and construction of the URL or HLW re-
pository, reliable assessment of the in-situ stress state at the sites is
a prerequisite. A reliable way to understand the stress state at a spe-
cific project site is to carry out in-situ stress measurement.
In the present study, geological features of the Beishan area are
first described and then the results of the hydro-fracturing in-situ
stress measurements conducted in the regional rock blocks of the
area are presented. Subsequently, the distribution characteristics of
the in-situ stress field in terms of stress magnitude and orientation
are analyzed. Finally, the obtained regional stress field of the Beishan
area is discussed in relation to the general in-situ stress field of North-
west China considering the geological evolution characteristics.
2. Geological setting
As the preferred candidate site for China's HLW repository, the
Beishan area is characterized by a flat landscape with some small
hills (in the Gobi Desert), with sparsely growing drought-resistant
plants such as Alhagi sparsifolia shrubs (see Figure 1b). The elevations
in this area range between 1400 and 2000 m above the sea level.
Height variation between the hills is in the order of several tens of
meters. The crust thickness in this area ranges from 47 to 50 km,
and the seismic intensity is below grade VI according to the Chinese
Seismic Intensity Classification Scale which classifies the intensity
from I to XII. No earthquake with Ms (i.e. surface wave magnitude)
greater than 4.75 was recorded in this area in history. Since the
Tertiary's Period, the crust in the area is uplifting slowly, at a velocity
of about 0.6 to 0.8 mm per year, without obvious differential move-
ment (Xu et al., 1997; Wang et al., 2006; Wang, 2010).
Field surveys and spatial statistics based on GIS (Geographic Informa-
tion System) technology indicate that there are 130 granitoid rock blocks
within the preselected area. The total area of these rock blocks is approx-
imately 9000 km2, accounting for about 20% of the preselected area.
Among these blocks, three granitic sections (Jiujing, Xiangyangshan-
Xinchang, and Yemaquan) are currently considered as key investigation
areas at the site selection and site characterization stage (Wang et al.,
2006). The granitoid rocks in the areas are mainly the Mesoproterozoic
and Late Proterozoic products formed during the Permian to Ordovician
periods due to magmatic action. After a long geological evolution pro-
cess, the outcrop and landscape of these granitoids are flattened to gentle
rolling hills and deserts. The granitoids cover a suite of acid igneous
rocks, dominantly consisting of monzonitic granite, tonalite, granodio-
rite, and quartzdiorite, etc., as presented in Fig. 2. The granitoids are
gray and fine to coarse grained, and consist of pale plagioclase,
allotriomorphic granular quartz, and smaller proportions of microcline,
biotite and hornblende. Accessory minerals primarily comprise apatite,
zircon, epidote, allanite, garnet, etc.
Geological rock type mapping was carried out across the Beishan
area at various scales. The blocky granitoid rock masses dominantly
strike E–W direction, as shown in Fig. 3. Other surrounding rocks in-
clude mainly Proterozoic metamorphic rocks, Mesozoic sedimentary
rocks, Quaternary alluvium and diluvium, and sparsely distributed
Late Paleozoic gabbros. In the study area, the trends of the faults dis-
tributed throughout the granitoid rock masses are dominantly in the
NE and NNE directions. Within the metamorphic rocks, there is a
large-scale ductile shear zone (i.e. Erdaojing-Hongqishan ductile
shear zone) with many brittle faults oriented dominantly in the EW
direction and partially in the NE direction. Of these, the Erdaojing-
Hongqishan fault is the largest one that extends approximately
130 km (Wang et al., 2000). The geological features of the Beishan
area indicate that the crust in the area is stable, and the site has a
great potential for being considered for the construction of a HLW re-
pository (Wang, 2010).
Surface geological mapping, geophysical survey and borehole inves-
tigation results indicate good quality of the granitoid rock masses in this
area (Wang, 2010). The RQD (Deere, 1968) classification obtained from
dill cores of nine sub-vertical boreholes (see Figure 3) at a depth range
from 0 to 700 m is presented in Fig. 4a. It is seen that the RQD values
that are between 75% and 90% (i.e. good rock quality) and larger than
90% (i.e. excellent rock quality) account for 17.9% and 68.1% of the
total borehole cores, respectively, indicating a generally good integrity
of the regional rock blocks. As will be discussed later, the good rock
quality provides an essential precondition for the successful in-situ
stress measurements using the hydro-fracturing method. Fig. 4b pre-
sents the RQD distributions in the boreholes. A photo of some intact
drill cores in borehole BS16 is presented in Fig. 5. The extremely high
quality of the rock mass in this section can be seen. According to field
observations to all extracted drill cores at different depths, except for
some distributed natural joints and fractures in the drill cores, there is
no obvious drilling-induced core disking, which is a frequently ob-
served phenomenon when diamond drill cores are retrieved from brit-
tle hard rock masses in high stress environments (Hoek, 2007; Corthésy
and Leite, 2008; Lim and Martin, 2010). This indirectly provides a sub-
jective indicator that the magnitude of the in-situ stresses in the
Beishan area would be at a low to medium level when compared with
the strength of the rocks.
3. In-situ stress measurement
During the last 12 years, a total of 136 hydro-fracturing tests have
been performed in nine deep boreholes with a diameter of 94 mm lo-
cated in the Jiujing, Jijicao and Xinchang sub-areas (see Figure 3). The
inclination of these boreholes is less than 1°. The depths of these tests
vary from approximately 30 to 700 m below the ground surface. A
single-loop hydro-fracturing system was used. The surface facilities
for the in-situ stress measurement and a schematic drawing of the
measurement system with its main components are presented in
Fig. 6. It can be observed from Fig. 6b that the system utilizes the dril-
ling rods as the only high-pressure pipeline to pressurize both the
sealing packers and test interval in a borehole. The design of the
single-loop system can effectively avoid rotation and twist of the
measurement pipelines when the instrument is lowered down to
deep boreholes. Rotation and twist of the measurement pipelines
can occur in a double-loop hydro-fracturing system. In addition, the
single-loop hydro-fracturing system is particularly applicable to
small diameter boreholes. The technique had been successfully used
for in-situ stress measurement in China and is now widely used
(Tan and Cai, 2006; Cai et al., 2008; Cai and Peng, 2011).
3.1. Stress measurement process
In the process of site characterization in the Beishan area, the
in-situ stress measurement was scheduled after hydraulic permeabil-
ity tests in the boreholes to avoid the influence of the artificial tensile
cracks or fractures caused by hydro-fracturing test on the permeabil-
ity test results. In fact, the stress measurement can only be carried out
until other borehole-based tests such as geophysical measurements,
hydrogeological tests, and hydro-chemical surveys have been com-
pleted. Based on the information in borehole log and acoustic bore-
hole televiewer image, the test intervals were selected in the intact
rock mass section in the boreholes. The positions, in which straddle
packer elements are fixed, need a smooth borehole wall with uniform
diameter to ensure that the testing process goes well. Otherwise, the
reliability and accuracy of the test data will be influenced.
Hydraulic pressure was supplied by an electric-driven pump with
a maximum working pressure of 30 MPa. A test pressure of 15 MPa
 X.G. Zhao et al. / Engineering Geology 163 (2013) 26–40 29

Fig. 2. Several granitoid rock types in the Beishan area showing their typical mineralogical compositions: (a) Monzonitic granite, (b) Granodiorite, (c) Quartzdiorite, and (d) Tonalite.

was used to check the leak proof of the drilling rods and the associat-
ed pipes in the process of pumping. An in-situ calibration result of the
pressure sensor used in the hydro-fracturing system is presented in
Fig. 7. It is seen that the pressure values obtained at the pressure in-
crease stage are consistent with those at the pressure decrease
stage, indicating that the used pressure sensor presents good repeat-
ability and stability.
The straddle packers were lowered down to the planned test
depth in the borehole. The packers were pressurized to 5 MPa using
liquid supplied from the pumping system on the surface, and subse-
quently the packers were anchored to the borehole wall closely to
generate a sealed space (i.e. test interval). A mechanically controlled
push–pull valve (see Figure 6b) on the top of the packer permitted
to switch from packer pressurization to injection into the test

Fig. 3. Simplified geological map showing part of the Beishan area along with the borehole locations for the in-situ stress measurement campaigns at three regional granitic rock
blocks (Jiujing, Xinchang, and Jijicao sub-areas).
30 X.G. Zhao et al. / Engineering Geology 163 (2013) 26–40

68.1%
a

RQD (%)
0-25 (Very poor)
25-50 (Poor)
50-75 (Fair)
75-90 (Good)
90-100 (Excellent)

2.9%
3.8%
17.9% 7.3%

b RQD (%) RQD (%) RQD (%)

0 25 50 75 100 0 25 50 75 100 0 25 50 75 100
0 0 0

100 100 100

200 200 200

300 300 300

Depth (m)

Depth (m)

Depth (m)
400 400 400

500 500 500

600 600 600 BS06

BS05 BS17
BS01 BS15 BS18
BS03 BS16 BS19
700 700 700

Fig. 4. (a) A RQD classification showing the proportion of different rock mass qualities based on nine boreholes in three different sub-areas, and scatter plots of RQD versus depth in
these boreholes (b).

interval. In our measurements, the length of each test interval was
1 m. In the first injection cycle, hydraulic tensile fractures was formed
by pumping water through drilling rods into the test interval at a flow
rate sufficient to increase the pressure to a value (i.e. breakdown
pressure Pb) in excess of the rock fracturing strength of the borehole
wall, at locations where the tangential wall stresses were the lowest.
When the rock fractured, pumping was then quickly terminated.
Once the fracture opened and further grew, the interval pressure
would decrease significantly (see Figure 8a).
The follow-on reopening test was carried out by injecting water into
the test interval again at the same flow rate as the fracturing test until
the previously closed fractures were reopened. The reopening pressure
Pr was marked as the point where the test interval pressure versus time
curve departed from its tangent slope (see Figure 8a). The fracture
needed to be subjected to at least three pressurization cycles to finish
the reopening test (Haimson and Cornet, 2003). In this study, five pres-
surization cycles were adopted at each test interval, and the forth injec-
tion cycle was used to determine the Pr value so that the fractures could
be reopened adequately. Meanwhile, the shut-in pressure Ps was also
obtained from this cycle. The accuracy of hydro-fracturing stress mea-
surement depends on the pressure–time records strongly. Based on
the relationships between the injection pressure and time, we success-
fully obtained the characteristic hydraulic pressure parameters for all
selected test intervals. Several typical test interval pressure–time re-
cords obtained from six boreholes at different depths are presented in
Fig. 8. Due to space limitation, the pressure–time curves for other test
intervals cannot be presented but their patterns are very consistent.
Accurate determination of Ps is critical to ensure good hydro-
fracturing measurement results because the shut-in pressure is con-
sidered equal to the minimum horizontal stress (for vertical bore-
holes). A large error for calculating the maximum horizontal stress
σH can occur if Ps is not properly estimated. So far, at least ten
methods have been proposed to identify the instantaneous shut-in
pressure from the pressure–time record, but none has been recog-
nized as the standard method due to the complexity of rock condi-
tions (Amadei and Stephansson, 1997; Cai et al., 1997). According to
Haimson and Cornet (2003), more than one approach should be
used for estimating the crucial Ps. In the present study, three different
methods including the inflection point method (Gronseth and Kry,
1983), the pressure decay rate (dP/dt) versus pressure (P) method,
and the inversed pressure decay rate (dt/dP) versus pressure (P)
method (Hayashi and Haimson, 1991; Haimson, 1993) were used to
 X.G. Zhao et al. / Engineering Geology 163 (2013) 26–40 31

30

25

20

Pressure (MPa)
15

10

0
1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5 5.0 5.5 6.0 6.5 7.0
Time (Minute)

Fig. 7. The calibration curve of the pressure sensor during pressure increase and
decrease.

Fig. 5. Intact 63 mm diameter drill cores extracted from borehole BS16.

determine Ps. An easy-to-use software tool was developed to assist
users to identify the Ps values from dP/dt–P and dt/dP–P relationships.
For example, Fig. 9 shows the graphical interpretations of the Ps for
the fourth cycle at the measurement depth of 116 m in borehole
BS18 (see Figure 8e) by the three selected methods. It can be seen
from Fig. 9 that these methods tend to yield comparable pressure
values. In our analysis, the average value obtained from these three
selected approaches was used to determine the final shut-in pressure
for each test.
After the fracturing and reopening tests, the impression packer with
an automatic orientation indicator was lowered to the same depth with
the same fracturing test interval. The existing fracture was recorded on
the packer surface due to strong squeeze of rubber wall into the frac-
ture, as presented in Fig. 10a. An automatic orientation device was

a b
Headframe

Winch

Flowmeter Control panel

High-pressure pump
Drilling rods Data recorder

Push-pull valve for packer

Packer

Test interval

Packer

Borehole

Fig. 6. Photograph showing surface facilities for in-situ stress measurement in the Beishan area (a), and a schematic illustration of the single-loop hydro-fracturing system (b).
32 X.G. Zhao et al. / Engineering Geology 163 (2013) 26–40

a b
20 20
18 18
16 16
14 Pb 14
Pressure (MPa)

Pressure (MPa)
12 12
10 Pr 10
8 Ps 8
6 6
4 4
2 2
0 0
-2 -2
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Time (Minute) Time (Minute)
c d
20 20
18 18
16 16
14 14
Pressure (MPa)

Pressure (MPa)
12 12
10 10
8 8
6 6
4 4
2 2
0 0
-2 -2
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Time (Minute) Time (Minute)
e f
20 20
18 18
16 16
14 14
Pressure (MPa)

Pressure (MPa)

12 12
10 10
8 8
6 6
4 4
2 2
0 0
-2 -2
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Time (Minute) Time (Minute)

Fig. 8. Several typical test-interval pressure–time curves obtained from the hydro-fracturing tests. (a) BS05, depth 305 m; (b) BS06, depth 449.5 m; (c) BS15, depth 319 m; (d)
BS16, depth 118 m; (e) BS18, depth 116 m; (f) BS19, depth 394 m.

used to determine the strike and dip of the fracture traced on the
impression packer. The water pressure-induced fracture orientation co-
incides with the orientation of the maximum horizontal stress. A series
of typical impression packer images and the interpreted fracture orien-
tations in eight borehole walls are presented in Fig. 10b. In addition, an
acoustic borehole televiewer (BHTV) was utilized as an assistant tool to
image the borehole wall in the fractured interval. One of the main ad-
vantages of the BHTV is that it can log the hole at a high speed and
cover all the borehole wall from which the characteristics of the fractures
can be defined. Fig. 11 displays the BHTV image of a test interval. Unfor-
tunately, field observations indicated that a successful characterization of
pressure-induced fractures using the BHTV technique could not be
guaranteed at some selected impression intervals. This was attributed
to the closure of newly generated brittle fractures in the dense granitic
rocks. Hence, the BHTV tool used, which had a caliper resolution of
0.1 mm, was unable to identify all the sub-vertical hydro-fractures. In
the following discussion, the orientations of hydro-fractures obtained
from the impression packer test are used.
3.2. Stress measurement results
Hydro-fracturing is a 2D stress measurement approach only appli-
cable to the determination of the maximum and minimum stresses in
the horizontal plane. The vertical stress (σv) is estimated from the
overburden weight, as follows:
σ v ¼ γH ð1Þ
where γ is the unit weight of the overlying rock, and H is the depth
below surface. Hoek (2007) summarized some measurement values
of vertical stress at various mining and civil engineering sites around
the world, and the data, as illustrated in Fig. 12, show a simple linear
expression (i.e. σv = 0.027H) which can be used to estimate the ver-
tical stress when in-situ measurement is not available. Based on den-
sity tests on extracted core samples located at different depths along
the boreholes, we find that the average unit weight of the overlaying
rocks is 26.5 kN/m3. This value is taken to evaluate the vertical stress,
 X.G. Zhao et al. / Engineering Geology 163 (2013) 26–40 33

a 7
The rock tensile strength can be obtained from laboratory tensile
test such as Brazilian test, a widely used method for indirect measure-
6 ment of tensile strength of rocks. It can also be estimated from the dif-
ference between the breakdown pressure and reopening pressure
5
when assuming that the hydraulic fractures close completely after
Pressure (MPa)

Ps = 3.64 MPa each cycle (Bredehoeft et al., 1976). To compare the calculated ten-
4
sile strengths from the hydro-fracturing data with the measured
3 values from laboratory test, Brazilian tests on a few rock samples
2 selected at various depths in a few boreholes were conducted and
results are presented in Fig. 13. It is seen from Fig. 13 that the ten-
1 sile strength (Tlab) from the Brazilian tests is, in general, higher
than that (Thf) calculated from the hydro-fracturing tests. This
0
conclusion coincides with the measurement results on Singapore
-1 granite given by Zhao et al. (2005). As pointed by Hoek (2007),
4.0 4.2 4.4 4.6 4.8 5.0 5.2 5.4 5.6 the rock samples used for laboratory test are carefully selected
Time (Minute) and limited in size and therefore represent only a small and intact
b fraction of the in-situ rock mass. The size effect of rock strength
10 hence contributed to the difference in the test results. In addition,
Inverse of pressure rate dt/dP (s/MPa)

Ps = 3.40 MPa more microscopic and hard-to-be-noticed cracks may be present

0 around on the large-scale borehole wall even if the rocks forming
the borehole are regarded as intact rocks. Hence, the tensile strength
interpreted from the hydro-fracturing method should be closer to the
-10 actual in-situ tensile strength.
Based on the elastic theory, we know that the hydro-fracturing
-20 stress measurement method will be accurate when applied in elastic,
homogeneous, isotropic, and non-porous media. The brittle hard
crystalline rocks with a generally good integrity in the Beishan area
-30 provide an ideal environment for successfully performing the tests
and obtaining reliable in-situ stress data (see Figure 8). However,
-40 the crystalline host rocks inevitably contain faults, fractures and
2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5 5.0 5.5 joints at different scales. It is noted that a few test results present sig-
Pressure (MPa) nificantly low tensile strengths (i.e. the small differences between the
breakdown and reopening pressure values) when compared with
c 35 those obtained from other in-situ and laboratory test data. For ex-
30 ample, it is observed from Fig. 14a and b that the peak pressures
Pressure rate dP/dt (MPa/s)

in the first injection cycle are slightly larger than those obtained
25 from the following injection cycles in the fracturing tests. Especially
20 for the test interval at a depth of 457.0 m in borehole BS01 (see
Figure 14a), the breakdown pressure is not clear in the pressure–
15
time history record, which is very different from the typical shape
10 of the pressure–time curves presented in Fig. 8. This implies that
5 the fractures at the two test intervals were pre-existing fractures,
not newly induced by hydraulic pressure. The natural fractures
0 were further opened and propagated during pressure injection.
-5 Ps = 3.15 MPa The BHTV images before testing verified the presence of the frac-
tures on the borehole walls in the two test intervals, as presented
-10
2.0 2.2 2.4 2.6 2.8 3.0 3.2 3.4 3.6 3.8 4.0 in Fig. 14c. Therefore, these results cannot be used to deduce hori-
Pressure (MPa) zontal stresses and are excluded in our analysis.
Fig. 15 summarizes the in-situ stress data derived from all 136
Fig. 9. Determinations of shut-in pressure Ps at a test interval using (a) inflection point tests in the Jiujing, Jijicao, and Xinchang sub-areas. Inspection of
method, (b) dt/dP–P and (c) dP/dt–P methods. Fig. 15a reveals that with an increase of depth, the horizontal stresses
present a gradual increasing trend in each sub-area, although there is
and the overall fitting relationship between σv and H is added to scatter in the measurement results. In all test locations, 81% of the σH
Fig. 12. values are larger than the σv values, indicating that the in-situ stress
According to the hydraulic pressure measurement results, the field is dominated by tectonic horizontal stress field. Within the mea-
in-situ horizontal principal stress components (σh, σH) are calculated surement depth range, the magnitudes of σH are all less than 25 MPa.
using Eqs. (2) and (3), respectively (Haimson, 1993; Haimson and The linear regression analysis further shows the variations of the
Cornet, 2003). principal stresses with depth. The shaded zones represent the 95%
confidence limits for the linear regressions of the two horizontal prin-
σ h ¼ Ps ð2Þ cipal stress components. It is seen that the magnitude of σH at the
depth of 450 m is about 15 MPa, which is approximately 50% and
25% of the maximum horizontal stresses respectively measured
σ H ¼ 3P s −P o −P r ð3Þ from the crystalline rock-based Äspö Hard Rock Laboratory (HRL)
(Andersson and Martin, 2009) in Sweden and the URL in Canada
where Po is the pore pressure, which is determined by the measure- (Martin, 1997) at the same depth, implying that the in-situ stress
ment of the water level in the borehole. level in the Beishan area is relatively low.
34 X.G. Zhao et al. / Engineering Geology 163 (2013) 26–40

BS01 BS05 BS06 BS15

a b Depth 339.0 m Depth 114.0 m Depth 113.5 m Depth 81.0 m

Fracture trace

N N N N

BS16 BS17 BS18 BS19

Depth 502.5 m Depth 482.0 m Depth 512.0 m Depth 484.0 m

N N N N

Fig. 10. A typical fracture trace impressed on the packer (a), and distributions of fracture trace on the different borehole walls, and interpreted orientations of fracture (solid lines)
and baseline (dashed lines) (b).

As can be seen from Fig. 15a, a piecewise distribution of the prin-

262.4 cipal stresses can be obtained to characterize the stress state of the
Beishan area in three zones approximately. At shallow (0 to 230 m)
and medium (230 to 700 m) depths, the stress fields are character-
Hydraulic
fracture ized by σH > σh > σv and σH > σv > σh, respectively. With further
262.8
Vertical stress, σv (MPa)
0 20 40 60 80
0
263.2
Depth below surface, H (m)
Depth (m)

263.6
1000

σv=0.0265H
264.0

2000
Pre-existing cracks
264.4 σv=0.027H

264.8 3000
Before test After test
Fig. 12. Vertical stress measurements from mining and civil engineering projects
around the world (modified from Hoek (2007)), and the estimated vertical stress in
Fig. 11. Identification of the hydraulic fracture at depth of 262 m in borehole BS18 the Beishan area using linear fit method based on density testing results of rock sam-
using acoustic BHTV. ples extracted from different depths in the stress measurement boreholes.
 X.G. Zhao et al. / Engineering Geology 163 (2013) 26–40 35

Tensile strength (MPa) a 20

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 18
0 16
Thf

Pressure (MPa)
14
Tlab 12
100 10
BS05 8
6
BS03 4
200 2
0
-2
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
300 Time (Minute)
Depth (m)

b 20
400 18
BS01 16

Pressure (MPa)
14
12
500 10
8
BS06 6
BS16
4
600
2
0
-2
700 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
Time (Minute)
Fig. 13. Comparison of tensile strength of rocks respectively deduced from hydro-
fracturing and Brazilian tests in boreholes BS01, BS03, BS05, BS06 and BS16. c

increase of depth (>700 m), there exists a possible stress field transfor- 493.0
mation from horizontal stress dominate to vertical stress dominate (i.e.
σv > σH > σh). The ratio of σH to σv (KHv) is between 0.64 and 3.87, and 457.2
the ratio decreases as the depth increases and approaches 1.0. A power
493.5
form expression can fit the data well, as shown in Fig. 15b. On the other
hand, the ratio of σH to σh (KHh) is between 1.08 and 1.80, with an aver-
Depth (m)

Depth (m)
age value of 1.47 (see Figure 15c), which means that the difference be- 457.4
tween the maximum and the minimum horizontal stresses is small and 494.0
the stress ratio varies little along depth. Fig. 16 presents the variation of
parameter K0 with depth, where K0 is defined as the ratio of the average
of the horizontal stresses to the vertical stresses: 457.6 494.5
σH þ σh
K0 ¼ ð4Þ
2σ v
495.0
457.8
where σH and σh are the maximum and minimum horizontal stresses,
respectively, and σv is the vertical stress. If a nonlinear representation
is assumed (i.e. K0 = a/H + b), the relationship between the ratio of
average horizontal to vertical stress K0 and depth is obtained from a re-
gression analysis of the measurement results. The best-fit equation is Fig. 14. Test-interval pressure–time curves obtained from the depths of 457.0 m (a) and
given by 493.2 m (b) in borehole BS01, respectively, and the BHTV images showing the pre-existing
natural fractures on the borehole walls of the two test intervals, respectively (c). The stress
measurement depth indicates the midpoint of each test interval with a length of 1 m.
90:4
K0 ¼ þ 0:8 ð5Þ
H

where H is the depth below surface. Furthermore, the data bounded on Comparisons of Eqs. (5) and (6) with (7) indicate that the varia-
the lower side and the upper bound can be expressed by tion of K0 with H obtained from the Beishan area has a similar trend
with that interpreted by Brown and Hoek (1978), and the lower
90:4 90:4 bounds given by Eqs. (6) and (7) are very similar (see Figure 16).
þ 0:3 ≤ K 0 ≤ þ 1:5: ð6Þ However, there exists a significant difference between the upper
H H
bounds in Eqs. (6) and (7), indicating lower average horizontal prin-
Based on the in-situ stress measurement data around the world, cipal stresses in the Beishan area. It should be noted that the Brown
Brown and Hoek (1978) summarized that the ratio of average horizontal and Hoek's dataset covers a wide range of stress measurement results
to vertical stress lies within the limits defined by obtained from different test sites in many counties with various geo-
logical characteristics, tectonic activities, and rock types. These factors
100 1500 will lead to a large dispersion of in-situ stress measurement data
þ 0:3 ≤ K 0 ≤ þ 0:5: ð7Þ
H H when compared with that obtained from a specific site. In addition,
36 X.G. Zhao et al. / Engineering Geology 163 (2013) 26–40
a Principal stress (MPa)
0 5 10 15
0 0
Jijicao
100
200
300
Depth (m)
400
500
600
700 σ h= 0.015H+2.613
800
Fig. 15. Variation of the principal stresses with depth in the Beishan area (a), and in-situ stress ratios determined from the stress data. (b) σH/σv. (c) σH/σh.
the large difference of testing depths between projects also has an im-
pact on the regression results of the stress measurement data.
The orientations of the maximum horizontal stresses at 39 mea-
surement test intervals are identified from the borehole impression
measurement, and the results are presented in Fig. 17. The fracture
impression results show that the orientations of σH in the three
sub-areas are oriented mainly in the NE direction with an exception
of two test intervals in borehole BS05 which result in the NW direc-
tion. Hence, it can be concluded that the regional in-situ stress field
in the Beishan area is influenced by the NE trending tectonic stress.
4. Relationship between in-situ stress field and geological evolu-
tion in the Beishan area
4.1. Stress background
The in-situ stress state in rock masses at depth is often influenced
by many factors such as gravity, Earth's tectonic plate movement, un-
derground water pressure, and heat. Of these, gravity due to overly-
ing rock mass and the movement of the Earth's tectonic plate
movement are two of the most important factors in generating
in-situ stress field. In particular, the tectonic movements govern the
horizontal stress orientation. According to the World Stress Map,
which is the global compilation of information on the present-day
stress field in the Earth's crust, Heidbach et al. (2009) confirm the as-
sociation between the tectonic plate movement and directions of the
major horizontal in-situ principal stress. The movement and collision
of tectonic plates can be regarded as the main factor causing the
Earth's crust to be subjected to tectonic forces, and hence create a re-
gional stress field across large areas of a particular land mass
(Hudson, 2010). The rock mass may be strong enough to sustain
these forces and the associated stresses. However, if the stresses are
high enough, the rock will fracture and crumple, creating joints,
faults, and folds (Harrison and Hudson, 2000).
Obviously, the distributions of China's tectonic stress field are
closely related to the dynamic effects coming from its surrounding
b σH/σV
20 25 30 0 1 2 3 4 5
σH
σh
200
Depth (m)
400
Jiujing
600
KHv=16.94H -0.44
800
σH/σh
Xinchang c 0 1 2 3 4 5
0
200
Depth (m)
σH=0.02H+4.526 400
σ v= 0.0265H
600
KHh=-0.0002H +1.54
800
tectonic plates. The Chinese mainland is located in the southeastern
part of the Eurasian plate and surrounded by the Indian plate, the Pa-
cific plate, the Siberia plate, and the Philippines sea plate. The Indian
plate and the Pacific plate are currently moving to push the Chinese
mainland, and meanwhile the Chinese mainland is constrained by
the northern Siberia plate and the southeastern Philippines sea
plate (Cai et al., 2002). As a result, the deformation of Chinese main-
land occurs, creating horizontal compressive stress fields. The ongo-
ing collision between the Indian plate and the Eurasian continent is
the primary dynamic factor that helps to establish the basic pattern
of recent tectonic stress field in China (Xie et al., 2010). Based on
the interpretations of plate motions, focal mechanisms and practical
in-situ stress measurements by applying different approaches, the
distributions and orientations of the regional compressive stress in
Northwest China are revealed and presented in Fig. 18. It can be ob-
served from the figure that from the boundary between colliding
plates to the Beishan area, the major compressive stresses present a
clockwise rotation trend from approximate N to NEE. The inferred
orientation of the major horizontal stress in the Beishan area is dom-
inantly in the NE–NEE direction, which is in general agreement with
the conclusion obtained from the current in-situ stress measurement
program (see Figure 17). The in-situ stress data obtained from the
Beishan area support the notion of compressive stress origin in
Northwest China, and provide additional stress information for future
updating the crustal stress database in China (Xie et al., 2007) and the
World Stress Map (Heidbach et al., 2009). Note that the World Stress
Map has a blank zone in terms of the orientation of the maximum
horizontal stress in the Northwest region of Gansu Province, China.
4.2. Regional geological structure analysis
Complex geological factors, such as topography characteristics,
rock anisotropy, faults, fracture zones and tectonics, are closely asso-
ciated with geological evolution history of regional rock masses. Re-
gional tectonic field in the rock masses caused by large-scale forces
related to plate interactions is ultimately responsible for the tectonic
 X.G. Zhao et al. / Engineering Geology 163 (2013) 26–40 37

Stress ratio K0
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5
0

K= 90.4/H +0.3

500
K= 90.4/H +1.5
K= 90.4/H +0.8

1000
Depth (m)

1500 K=100/H +0.3 K=1500/H +0.5

2000

2500

Fig. 16. Relationships between the ratio of average horizontal stress to vertical stress and depth in the Beishan area.

fabric of an area (Sbar et al., 1979). When the current stress field
overlaps with the previous stress field and develops further, or cou-
ples with a historical tectonic stress field, the new and the old struc-
tures may interact with each other and form certain patterns (Miao et
al., 2012). Hence, one can gain an insight into the regional tectonic
stress by investigating the characteristics of geological structures
within a specific area.
As previously described in Section 2, there exist two dominant fault
groups respectively orientated in NE and EW in the Beishan area (see
Figure 3). The NE oriented faults are main structures in the granites
while those oriented in EW distribute mainly in the metamorphic
rocks. These fault structures and their interactions have different geo-
logical characteristics due to the differences of tectonic positions,
Orientation of σH(°)
W 60 30 N 30
0 faults in the field.
BS15
100
200
BS05
300
Depth (m)
formation periods, and evolution histories. As a representative of the
EW trending structures in the Jiujing sub-area (see Figure 19a), the
Erdaojing-Hongqishan fault originated in the Early Paleozoic era, and
demonstrated strong activities in the Late Paleozoic era, and its activi-
ties significantly decayed in the Mesozoic era. Due to the occurrence
of the compressive stress oriented in the NE direction, which resulted
from collision between the Indian plate and the Eurasian plate since
the Cenozoic era, a series of NE trending faults started to develop and
subsequently cut the Erdaojing-Hongqishan fault, indicating that the
EW trending structure preceded those oriented in the NE direction.
Field surveys revealed that the NE fault group exhibits a sinistral–
normal faulting behavior. The in-situ stress measurement results
show that the average maximum horizontal principal stress is oriented
in N35°E direction in the Jiujing sub-area (see Figure 19a). Under the
given stress boundary conditions, the NE faults with sinistral character-
istics are easy to form, which coincide with the interpreted direction of
60 E
The major tectonic features of the Jijicao and Xinchang sub-areas
can be characterized by the faults that dominantly strike in the
NNE–NEE direction (see Figure 19b). These faults are non-active
and most of them have been cemented well and are filled with sili-
ceous breccias. Laboratory tests on the rock samples taken from the
faults indicate that these faults mainly belong to the pre-Quaternary
BS17 structural system. In the Jijicao sub-area, the variations in the orienta-
tion of the maximum horizontal stresses in three boreholes (i.e. BS05,
BS15 and BS16) can be seen. In boreholes BS15 and BS16, the mea-
sured average σH is oriented approximately in the NE direction,

roughly parallel to the major NE striking fault group. This observation

BS01 is also consistent with the inferred stress direction based on the stress
BS06 background linked to plate motion described in Section 4.1. However,
400
in borehole BS05, which is located south of a NNW striking fault, the
BS16 average σH is oriented in the NNW direction. Field investigations indi-
BS18 cate that the borehole intersects the NNW striking fault at a depth of
500 about 300 m. The very poor drill cores extracted from the intersection
location indicate that the fracture zone thickness is about 4 m, as
BS19 shown in Fig. 20. According to the fracture impression test data (see
600 Figure 17), the orientation of σH at a depth of 305 m in borehole
Jiujing sub-area
BS05 is N22°W, which deviates from the NE trending tectonic stress.
Jijicao sub-area
With decreasing depth, the orientation of σH presents a transition
Xinchang sub-area
from NNW to NNE direction, indicating that the maximum horizontal
700
stress directions are affected by the presence of the fracture zone sig-
Fig. 17. Variations of orientations of the maximum horizontal stresses with depth in nificantly. Hence, the NNW trending fault through the center of the
the Jiujing, Jijicao, and Xinchang sub-areas. field plays a critical role in rotating or decoupling the NE-oriented
38 X.G. Zhao et al. / Engineering Geology 163 (2013) 26–40
70° 80° 90°
40°
30°
I nd
ian
Pla
te
20°
90° 100°
Fig. 18. Compressive stress map in Northwest China.
Modified from Xie et al. (2003).
regional tectonic stress field, leading to the appearance of local stress
fields in this area.
Among the three sub-areas in the studied region, the Xinchang
sub-area, located north of the Jijicao sub-area, is the largest rock block
element. It is seen from Fig. 19b that within the Xinchang sub-area,
the overlapped orientations of σH measured in four boreholes (i.e.
BS06, BS17, BS18 and BS19) are all oriented in the NEE direction with
a small deviation between each borehole. The difference between the
average σH orientations in these boreholes is less than 10° (see
Figure 17). The good agreement of the in-situ stress measurement re-
sults in the boreholes indicates that the geological characteristics of
this rock block are simple. The average regional maximum principal
stress direction in the Xinchang rock block is N59°E, which is slightly
different than those obtained from the Jiujing and Jijicao sub-areas
with one exception in borehole BS05. The difference may be attributed
to the variance of geographical locations (see Figure 3) where the re-
gional tectonic stress fields tend to rotate clockwise from southwest
to northeast due to the dynamic loading of the compressive stress field.
5. Conclusions
A total of 136 hydro-fracturing in-situ stress measurements were
conducted successfully in granitic rock blocks of the Beishan area in
China in nine sub-vertical boreholes at depths ranging between 30 and
700 m below the ground surface. The obtained stress data provide a com-
prehensive view of the state and characteristics of regional in-situ stresses
in the Beishan area. The measurement results show that in-situ stresses
increase with depth and the maximum horizontal principal stress is gen-
erally larger than the vertical stress, indicating that within the range of
100°
50°
Legend
Focal mechanism
Geol. indicator
Hydraulic fracturing
Overcoring
40°
Breakouts
Normal faulting
Strike-slip faulting
Thrust faulting
Non-dertermined regime
30°
Continuous stress and strain measurements
Regional compressive stress
Tectonic plate movement
Beishan area
tested depth, the regional stress field is dominated by tectonic horizontal
stress rather than by the overburden load. Linear regression analysis on
the magnitude of principal stress components with depth shows that
the in-situ stress field in the Beishan area can be characterized by a piece-
wise distribution in three zones. The σH > σh > σv stress field exists at
shallow depth, the σH > σv > σh stress field governs the medium
depth, and the σv > σH > σh stress field may occur at large depth. It
should be noted that the hydraulic fracturing method can only measure
horizontal stresses, and the theoretical assumption of the vertical stress
is not always equal to the measured vertical principal stress. The present
stress field in this area needs to be verified from 3D stress tensor deter-
mined from overcoring methods when underground excavations are
available in the future.
The ratio of maximum horizontal stress to vertical stress KHv dis-
plays a remarkable nonlinear behavior with increasing depth, i.e.
KHv decreases rapidly and tends to be less than 1.0 at large depths.
On the other hand, the depth has a small influence on the ratio of
maximum to minimum horizontal stress ratio KHh, which is on aver-
age in the order of 1.5. The stress state is very favorable for the stabil-
ity of underground excavations due to the relatively low stress
magnitudes when compared with the strength of crystalline rocks
and small stress difference between the maximum and minimum
principal stresses.
The measured maximum horizontal principal stresses in the
Beishan area are mainly oriented in the NNE–NEE direction, approxi-
mately parallel to the maximum regional tectonic stress inferred from
compressive stress origin due to plate tectonics. This agreement sup-
ports the accuracy of the in-situ stress measurement results. It is
understood that local fault structures can significantly modify the
 X.G. Zhao et al. / Engineering Geology 163 (2013) 26–40 39

a
NE fault group

BS01
BS03

N
Erdaojing-Hongqishan fault

5 km

BS17

BS06 BS19
BS18

Xinchang sub-area

BS16

BS05
BS15
N
Jijicao
sub-area
2 km

Fig. 19. Distributions of the maximum horizontal principal stress in the Jiujing (a), Jijicao and Xinchang sub-areas (b). The arrows with red color represent the average orientations
of σH measured at each borehole site.

regional stress field, leading to the rotation of the maximum horizon-
tal stress, and stress orientations can deviate significantly from the
dominant regional tectonic stress when the fracture zone is crossed.
Future work will focus on investigating the magnitude and orienta-
tion of in-situ stresses from shallow to deep grounds related to spatial
distribution, geometric structure and formation mechanism of the re-
gional faults. Furthermore, numerical simulations of the in-situ stress
associated with regional discontinuities will be performed to reveal
the rotation of the stress field by the local fault structures and the
decoupling between local and regional stress fields. It is also planned
to drill deeper boreholes to perform more stress measurements using
the hydro-fracturing method and further establish the distributions of
the in-situ stress field at depth in this region.
Acknowledgments
This work has been supported by the China Atomic Energy Authority
through the geological disposal program and the National Natural
Science Foundation of China (grant no. 11102061). The authors would
like to thank the Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy
of Science, and the Institute of Geology, China Earthquake Administra-
tion for their help with the field work. The excellent collaboration of
all participants is highly appreciated.
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