Effect of anisotropic borehole wall failures when estimating in situ stresses: A case study in the Nankai accretionary wedge

• We model borehole breakouts considering anisotropic rock strength due to beddings.
• Strength anisotropy affects significantly on breakout geometry as bedding is steep.
• Ignoring anisotropy tends to yield an overestimation of stress magnitude.

Breakouts observed in a vertical borehole (C0002A) drilled through two major tectonic sedimentary formations consisting of forearc basin (upper) and accretionary prism (lower) sediments in the Nankai accretionary wedge, Japan, exhibit distinctive geometric features in respective formations. Breakouts in the lower accretionary prism sediments are markedly wider than those in the forearc basin sediments, and breakout azimuths in the two units are horizontally rotated relative to one another. Breakout azimuths are widely used as a proxy for the determination of principal stress directions. However, strength anisotropies related to the presence of bedding planes may affect both breakout azimuths and widths, which can result in misleading in situ stress interpretations. While thinly bedded mudstones are the dominant lithology in both the forearc basin and accretionary prism sediments, bedding planes in the accretionary prism sediments are relatively steeper than those in the forearc basin sediments, with possible implications for breakout geometry and interpretations of principal stress directions. To investigate the effects of bedding planes on breakout geometry (azimuth and width), we conducted borehole wall failure analyses using a weak-plane failure model that incorporates material strength anisotropies. The model results show that breakout widths and orientations are strongly affected by steeply dipping (>40°) bedding planes in cases where dip directions are unaligned with the principal stress orientation. Our theoretical results suggest that variations in breakout azimuths in the C0002A site may be associated with bedding plane related strength anisotropy, and not associated with the rotation of stress field. That is, stress orientation is consistent throughout the borehole (down to the bottom-hole depth of 1495 m below sea floor). In addition, disregarding the effects of bedding planes tends to yield an overestimation of in situ stress magnitude.