• search hit 9 of 0
Back to Result List

The 2013 September-October seismic sequence offshore Spain: a case of seismicity triggered by gas injection?

  • A spatially localized seismic sequence originated few tens of kilometres offshore the Mediterranean coast of Spain, close to the Ebro river delta, starting on 2013 September 5, and lasting at least until 2013 October. The sequence culminated in a maximal moment magnitude M-w 4.3 earthquake, on 2013 October 1. The most relevant seismogenic feature in the area is the Fosa de Amposta fault system, which includes different strands mapped at different distances to the coast, with a general NE-SW orientation, roughly parallel to the coastline. However, no significant known historical seismicity has involved this fault system in the past. The epicentral region is also located near the offshore platform of the Castor project, where gas is conducted through a pipeline from mainland and where it was recently injected in a depleted oil reservoir, at about 2 km depth. We analyse the temporal evolution of the seismic sequence and use full waveform techniques to derive absolute and relative locations, estimate depths and focal mechanisms for theA spatially localized seismic sequence originated few tens of kilometres offshore the Mediterranean coast of Spain, close to the Ebro river delta, starting on 2013 September 5, and lasting at least until 2013 October. The sequence culminated in a maximal moment magnitude M-w 4.3 earthquake, on 2013 October 1. The most relevant seismogenic feature in the area is the Fosa de Amposta fault system, which includes different strands mapped at different distances to the coast, with a general NE-SW orientation, roughly parallel to the coastline. However, no significant known historical seismicity has involved this fault system in the past. The epicentral region is also located near the offshore platform of the Castor project, where gas is conducted through a pipeline from mainland and where it was recently injected in a depleted oil reservoir, at about 2 km depth. We analyse the temporal evolution of the seismic sequence and use full waveform techniques to derive absolute and relative locations, estimate depths and focal mechanisms for the largest events in the sequence (with magnitude mbLg larger than 3), and compare them to a previous event (2012 April 8, mbLg 3.3) taking place in the same region prior to the gas injection. Moment tensor inversion results show that the overall seismicity in this sequence is characterized by oblique mechanisms with a normal fault component, with a 30A degrees low-dip angle plane oriented NNE-SSW and a subvertical plane oriented NW-SE. The combined analysis of hypocentral location and focal mechanisms could indicate that the seismic sequence corresponds to rupture processes along shallow low-dip surfaces, which could have been triggered by the gas injection in the reservoir, and excludes the activation of the Amposta fault, as its known orientation is inconsistent with focal mechanism results. An alternative scenario includes the iterated triggering of a system of steep faults oriented NW-SE, which were identified by prior marine seismics investigations.show moreshow less

Export metadata

Additional Services

Search Google Scholar Statistics
Metadaten
Author details:Simone CescaORCiD, Francesco GrigoliORCiD, Sebastian HeimannORCiD, Alvaro Gonzalez, Elisa Buforn, Samira Maghsoudi, Estefania Blanch, Torsten DahmORCiDGND
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1093/gji/ggu172
ISSN:0956-540X
ISSN:1365-246X
Title of parent work (English):Geophysical journal international
Publisher:Oxford Univ. Press
Place of publishing:Oxford
Publication type:Article
Language:English
Year of first publication:2014
Publication year:2014
Release date:2017/03/27
Tag:Earthquake dynamics; Earthquake source observations
Volume:198
Issue:2
Number of pages:13
First page:941
Last Page:953
Funding institution:Ciencia e Innovacion project ALERT-ES [CGL2010-19803C03-01]; Caja Madrid Foundation (Spain); Spanish Government [FIS2010-19773]
Organizational units:Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Institut für Geowissenschaften
Peer review:Referiert
Institution name at the time of the publication:Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Institut für Erd- und Umweltwissenschaften
Accept ✔
This website uses technically necessary session cookies. By continuing to use the website, you agree to this. You can find our privacy policy here.