Senior Seismologist

Job Description

The Senior Seismologist will lead the design, implementation, and processing of critical borehole and surface seismic monitoring campaigns to support Fervo Energy’s Enhanced Geothermal operations. This role is central to executing Fervo’s induced seismicity monitoring and mitigation plans, leveraging extensive datasets from fiber optic sensing, seismometers, and dense nodal arrays. A key responsibility is the development of advanced workflows for real-time microseismic processing using fiber-optic Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS). This includes estimating event magnitudes, focal mechanisms, and stress drops from DAS data, and integrating these insights into building rupture models and assess seismicity risk. The Seismologist will also play a leadership role in securing and managing research grants as Principal Investigator, fostering collaboration with national laboratories and academic institutions. While Fervo already has systems in place for real-time earthquake cataloging, this role encourages innovation in catalog-building techniques, especially those leveraging DAS and geophone data. The ideal candidate will develop algorithms that enhance real-time seismic hazard assessment and inform operational response protocols. Open to candidates across experience levels who meet the qualifications, this position will be an integral part of a multidisciplinary team of geophysicists, fiber-optic specialists, reservoir engineers, and computational scientists. The Seismologist will report to the Manager of Data Acquisition and Advanced Analytics.

Responsibilities

• Process and interpret microseismic and fiber optic strain/strain rate data to inform geologic models and evaluate reservoir performance.
• Analyzing induced seismicity to assess seismic hazard, support risk mitigation strategies, and optimize stimulation and completion efficiency.
• Extract earthquake source parameters—including magnitude, focal mechanism, and stress drop—from DAS, geophones, and seismometers; develop and apply rupture models to characterize fault behavior.
• Design and implement algorithms for real-time seismic hazard assessment using physics-based modeling, statistical analysis, and machine learning approaches.

Qualifications

• Master’s or Ph.D. in Geophysics, Seismology, Applied mathematics or a related field.
• Strong proficiency in earthquake source analysis, including moment tensor inversion, stress drop estimation, and stress inversion. Experience with DAS-based earthquake source characterization is a plus but not required.
• Demonstrated ability to develop analytical and numerical models for interpreting strain and strain rate from fiber-optic DAS data during hydraulic stimulation and geothermal production.
• Experience integrating seismic observations with Thermo-Hydro-Mechanical-Chemical (THMC) models to evaluate seismic and aseismic slip processes.
• Proficiency in Python for seismic data processing, including scripting, tool development, and algorithm implementation; familiarity with Linux-based computing environments.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in High Performance Computing.
• Background in solving inverse problems related to seismological data.
• Experience in applying machine learning techniques to seismological problems.

Location

Fervo Energy is headquartered in Houston, TX with satellite offices in the Bay Area, CA, Golden, CO and Reno, NV. This position will be eligible for some hybrid work flexibility, but regular in-office presence at the Houston OR Golden, CO office will be required. Some travel is required for this position.

Compensation & Benefits

Fervo provides a comprehensive suite of benefits including medical, dental, vision, life, short-term and long-term disability, flexible paid time off, and paid parental leave. Additionally, Fervo offers an incentive stock options program, a bonus incentive program, and a 401(k) plan with an employer match.

Fervo Energy is providing the compensation range and general description of other compensation and benefits that the company in good faith believes it might pay and/or offer for this position based on the successful applicant’s education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities in addition to internal equity and geographic location. Expected Salary: $145,000 – $175,000 based on Colorado locality, pay in other locations may vary.

Fervo Energy reserves the right to ultimately pay more or less than the posted range and offer other compensation, depending on circumstances not related to an applicant’s sex or other status protected by local, state, or federal law.