TY - JOUR A1 - Passarelli, Luigi A1 - Hainzl, Sebastian A1 - Cesca, Simone A1 - Maccaferri, Francesco A1 - Mucciarelli, Marco A1 - Rößler, Dirk A1 - Corbi, Fabio A1 - Dahm, Torsten A1 - Rivalta, Eleonora T1 - Aseismic transient driving the swarm-like seismic sequence in the Pollino range, Southern Italy JF - Geophysical journal international N2 - Tectonic earthquake swarms challenge our understanding of earthquake processes since it is difficult to link observations to the underlying physical mechanisms and to assess the hazard they pose. Transient forcing is thought to initiate and drive the spatio-temporal release of energy during swarms. The nature of the transient forcing may vary across sequences and range from aseismic creeping or transient slip to diffusion of pore pressure pulses to fluid redistribution and migration within the seismogenic crust. Distinguishing between such forcing mechanisms may be critical to reduce epistemic uncertainties in the assessment of hazard due to seismic swarms, because it can provide information on the frequency-magnitude distribution of the earthquakes (often deviating from the assumed Gutenberg-Richter relation) and on the expected source parameters influencing the ground motion (for example the stress drop). Here we study the ongoing Pollino range (Southern Italy) seismic swarm, a long-lasting seismic sequence with more than five thousand events recorded and located since October 2010. The two largest shocks (magnitude M-w = 4.2 and M-w = 5.1) are among the largest earthquakes ever recorded in an area which represents a seismic gap in the Italian historical earthquake catalogue. We investigate the geometrical, mechanical and statistical characteristics of the largest earthquakes and of the entire swarm. We calculate the focal mechanisms of the M-l > 3 events in the sequence and the transfer of Coulomb stress on nearby known faults and analyse the statistics of the earthquake catalogue. We find that only 25 per cent of the earthquakes in the sequence can be explained as aftershocks, and the remaining 75 per cent may be attributed to a transient forcing. The b-values change in time throughout the sequence, with low b-values correlated with the period of highest rate of activity and with the occurrence of the largest shock. In the light of recent studies on the palaeoseismic and historical activity in the Pollino area, we identify two scenarios consistent with the observations and our analysis: This and past seismic swarms may have been 'passive' features, with small fault patches failing on largely locked faults, or may have been accompanied by an 'active', largely aseismic, release of a large portion of the accumulated tectonic strain. Those scenarios have very different implications for the seismic hazard of the area. KW - Seismicity and tectonics KW - Statistical seismology KW - Dynamics: seismotectonics Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1093/gji/ggv111 SN - 0956-540X SN - 1365-246X VL - 201 IS - 3 SP - 1553 EP - 1567 PB - Oxford Univ. Press CY - Oxford ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Maghsoudi, Samira A1 - Cesca, Simone A1 - Hainzl, Sebastian A1 - Dahm, Torsten A1 - Zöller, Gert A1 - Kaiser, Diethelm T1 - Maximum Magnitude of Completeness in a Salt Mine JF - Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America N2 - In this study, we analyze acoustic emission (AE) data recorded at the Morsleben salt mine, Germany, to assess the catalog completeness, which plays an important role in any seismicity analysis. We introduce the new concept of a magnitude completeness interval consisting of a maximum magnitude of completeness (M-c(max)) in addition to the well-known minimum magnitude of completeness. This is required to describe the completeness of the catalog, both for the smallest events (for which the detection performance may be low) and for the largest ones (which may be missed because of sensors saturation). We suggest a method to compute the maximum magnitude of completeness and calculate it for a spatial grid based on (1) the prior estimation of saturation magnitude at each sensor, (2) the correction of the detection probability function at each sensor, including a drop in the detection performance when it saturates, and (3) the combination of detection probabilities of all sensors to obtain the network detection performance. The method is tested using about 130,000 AE events recorded in a period of five weeks, with sources confined within a small depth interval, and an example of the spatial distribution of M-c(max) is derived. The comparison between the spatial distribution of M-c(max) and of the maximum possible magnitude (M-max), which is here derived using a recently introduced Bayesian approach, indicates that M-max exceeds M-c(max) in some parts of the mine. This suggests that some large and important events may be missed in the catalog, which could lead to a bias in the hazard evaluation. Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1785/0120140039 SN - 0037-1106 SN - 1943-3573 VL - 105 IS - 3 SP - 1491 EP - 1501 PB - Seismological Society of America CY - Albany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Wang, Lifeng A1 - Zöller, Gert A1 - Hainzl, Sebastian T1 - Joint Determination of Slip and Stress Drop in a Bayesian Inversion Approach: A Case Study for the 2010 M8.8 Maule Earthquake JF - Pure and applied geophysics N2 - Stress drop is a key factor in earthquake mechanics and engineering seismology. However, stress drop calculations based on fault slip can be significantly biased, particularly due to subjectively determined smoothing conditions in the traditional least-square slip inversion. In this study, we introduce a mechanically constrained Bayesian approach to simultaneously invert for fault slip and stress drop based on geodetic measurements. A Gaussian distribution for stress drop is implemented in the inversion as a prior. We have done several synthetic tests to evaluate the stability and reliability of the inversion approach, considering different fault discretization, fault geometries, utilized datasets, and variability of the slip direction, respectively. We finally apply the approach to the 2010 M8.8 Maule earthquake and invert for the coseismic slip and stress drop simultaneously. Two fault geometries from the literature are tested. Our results indicate that the derived slip models based on both fault geometries are similar, showing major slip north of the hypocenter and relatively weak slip in the south, as indicated in the slip models of other studies. The derived mean stress drop is 5-6 MPa, which is close to the stress drop of similar to 7 MPa that was independently determined according to force balance in this region Luttrell et al. (J Geophys Res, 2011). These findings indicate that stress drop values can be consistently extracted from geodetic data. KW - Stress drop KW - Fault slip KW - Bayesian KW - Geodetic measurements Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s00024-014-0868-x SN - 0033-4553 SN - 1420-9136 VL - 172 IS - 2 SP - 375 EP - 388 PB - Springer CY - Basel ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Dahm, Torsten A1 - Cesca, Simone A1 - Hainzl, Sebastian A1 - Braun, Thomas A1 - Krüger, Frank T1 - Discrimination between induced, triggered, and natural earthquakes close to hydrocarbon reservoirs: A probabilistic approach based on the modeling of depletion-induced stress changes and seismological source parameters JF - Journal of geophysical research : Solid earth N2 - Earthquakes occurring close to hydrocarbon fields under production are often under critical view of being induced or triggered. However, clear and testable rules to discriminate the different events have rarely been developed and tested. The unresolved scientific problem may lead to lengthy public disputes with unpredictable impact on the local acceptance of the exploitation and field operations. We propose a quantitative approach to discriminate induced, triggered, and natural earthquakes, which is based on testable input parameters. Maxima of occurrence probabilities are compared for the cases under question, and a single probability of being triggered or induced is reported. The uncertainties of earthquake location and other input parameters are considered in terms of the integration over probability density functions. The probability that events have been human triggered/induced is derived from the modeling of Coulomb stress changes and a rate and state-dependent seismicity model. In our case a 3-D boundary element method has been adapted for the nuclei of strain approach to estimate the stress changes outside the reservoir, which are related to pore pressure changes in the field formation. The predicted rate of natural earthquakes is either derived from the background seismicity or, in case of rare events, from an estimate of the tectonic stress rate. Instrumentally derived seismological information on the event location, source mechanism, and the size of the rupture plane is of advantage for the method. If the rupture plane has been estimated, the discrimination between induced or only triggered events is theoretically possible if probability functions are convolved with a rupture fault filter. We apply the approach to three recent main shock events: (1) the M-w 4.3 Ekofisk 2001, North Sea, earthquake close to the Ekofisk oil field; (2) the M-w 4.4 Rotenburg 2004, Northern Germany, earthquake in the vicinity of the Sohlingen gas field; and (3) the M-w 6.1 Emilia 2012, Northern Italy, earthquake in the vicinity of a hydrocarbon reservoir. The three test cases cover the complete range of possible causes: clearly human induced, not even human triggered, and a third case in between both extremes. KW - induced seismicity KW - probabilistic discrimination KW - hydrocarbon field KW - triggered earthquake KW - seismic hazard KW - earthquake Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/2014JB011778 SN - 2169-9313 SN - 2169-9356 VL - 120 IS - 4 SP - 2491 EP - 2509 PB - American Geophysical Union CY - Washington ER -