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Reservoir-triggered seismicity has been observed near dams during construction, impoundment, and cyclic filling in many parts of the earth. In Turkey, the number of dams has increased substantially over the last decade, with Ataturk Dam being the largest dam in Turkey with a total water capacity of 48.7 billion m(3). After the construction of the dam, the monitoring network has improved. Considering earthquakes above the long-term completeness magnitude of M-C = 3.5, the local seismicity rate has substantially increased after the filling of the reservoir. Recently, two damaging earthquakes of M-w 5.5 and M-w 5.1 occurred in the town of Samsat near the Ataturk Reservoir in 2017 and 2018, respectively. In this study, we analyze the spatio-temporal evolution of seismicity and its source properties in relation to the temporal water-level variations and the stresses resulting from surface loading and pore-pressure diffusion. We find that water-level and seismicity rate are anti-correlated, which is explained by the stabilization effect of the gravitational induced stress imposed by water loading on the local faults. On the other hand, we find that the overall effective stress in the seismogenic zone increased over decades due to pore-pressure diffusion, explaining the enhanced background seismicity during recent years. Additionally, we observe a progressive decrease of the Gutenberg-Richter b-value. Our results indicate that the stressing rate finally focused on the region where the two damaging earthquakes occurred in 2017 and 2018.
Various techniques are utilized by the seismological community, extractive industries, energy and geoengineering companies to identify earthquake nucleation processes in close proximity to engineering operation points. These operations may comprise fluid extraction or injections, artificial water reservoir impoundments, open pit and deep mining, deep geothermal power generations or carbon sequestration. In this letter to the editor, we outline several lines of investigation that we suggest to follow to address the discrimination problem between natural seismicity and seismic events induced or triggered by geoengineering activities. These suggestions have been developed by a group of experts during several meetings and workshops, and we feel that their publication as a summary report is helpful for the geoscientific community. Specific investigation procedures and discrimination approaches, on which our recommendations are based, are also published in this Special Issue (SI) of Journal of Seismology.
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.
Seismicity models are probabilistic forecasts of earthquake rates to support seismic hazard assessment.
Physics-based models allow extrapolating previously unsampled parameter ranges and enable conclusions on underlying tectonic or human-induced processes.
The Coulomb Failure (CF) and the rate-and-state (RS) models are two widely used physics-based seismicity models both assuming pre-existing populations of faults responding to Coulomb stress changes.
The CF model depends on the absolute Coulomb stress and assumes instantaneous triggering if stress exceeds a threshold, while the RS model only depends on stress changes.
Both models can predict background earthquake rates and time-dependent stress effects, but the RS model with its three independent parameters can additionally explain delayed aftershock triggering.
This study introduces a modified CF model where the instantaneous triggering is replaced by a mean time-to-failure depending on the absolute stress value.
For the specific choice of an exponential dependence on stress and a stationary initial seismicity rate, we show that the model leads to identical results as the RS model and reproduces the Omori-Utsu relation for aftershock decays as well stress-shadowing effects.
Thus, both CF and RS models can be seen as special cases of the new model. However, the new stress response model can also account for subcritical initial stress conditions and alternative functions of the mean time-to-failure depending on the problem and fracture mode.
Geysers are hot springs whose frequency of water eruptions remain poorly understood. We set up a local broadband seismic network for 1 year at Strokkur geyser, Iceland, and developed an unprecedented catalog of 73,466 eruptions. We detected 50,135 single eruptions but find that the geyser is also characterized by sets of up to six eruptions in quick succession. The number of single to sextuple eruptions exponentially decreased, while the mean waiting time after an eruption linearly increased (3.7 to 16.4 min). While secondary eruptions within double to sextuple eruptions have a smaller mean seismic amplitude, the amplitude of the first eruption is comparable for all eruption types. We statistically model the eruption frequency assuming discharges proportional to the eruption multiplicity and a constant probability for subsequent events within a multituple eruption. The waiting time after an eruption is predictable but not the type or amplitude of the next one. <br /> Plain Language Summary Geysers are springs that often erupt in hot water fountains. They erupt more often than volcanoes but are quite similar. Nevertheless, it is poorly understood how often volcanoes and also geysers erupt. We created a list of 73,466 eruption times of Strokkur geyser, Iceland, from 1 year of seismic data. The geyser erupted one to six times in quick succession. We found 50,135 single eruptions but only 1 sextuple eruption, while the mean waiting time increased from 3.7 min after single eruptions to 16.4 min after sextuple eruptions. Mean amplitudes of each eruption type were higher for single eruptions, but all first eruptions in a succession were similar in height. Assuming a constant heat inflow at depth, we can predict the waiting time after an eruption but not the type or amplitude of the next one.
Understanding and constraining the source of geodetic deformation in volcanic areas is an important component of hazard assessment. Here, we analyse deformation and seismicity for one year before the March 2021 Fagradalsfjall eruption in Iceland. We generate a high-resolution catalogue of 39,500 earthquakes using optical cable recordings and develop a poroelastic model to describe three pre-eruptional uplift and subsidence cycles at the Svartsengi geothermal field, 8 km west of the eruption site. We find the observed deformation is best explained by cyclic intrusions into a permeable aquifer by a fluid injected at 4 km depth below the geothermal field, with a total volume of 0.11 ± 0.05 km3 and a density of 850 ± 350 kg m–3. We therefore suggest that ingression of magmatic CO2 can explain the geodetic, gravity and seismic data, although some contribution of magma cannot be excluded.
A review of source models to further the understanding of the seismicity of the Groningen field
(2022)
The occurrence of felt earthquakes due to gas production in Groningen has initiated numerous studies and model attempts to understand and quantify induced seismicity in this region. The whole bandwidth of available models spans the range from fully deterministic models to purely empirical and stochastic models. In this article, we summarise the most important model approaches, describing their main achievements and limitations. In addition, we discuss remaining open questions and potential future directions of development.
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.
Reliable estimations of magnitude of completeness (M-c) are essential for a correct interpretation of seismic catalogues. The spatial distribution of M-c may be strongly variable and difficult to assess in mining environments, owing to the presence of galleries, cavities, fractured regions, porous media and different mineralogical bodies, as well as in consequence of inhomogeneous spatial distribution of the seismicity. We apply a 3-D modification of the probabilistic magnitude of completeness (PMC) method, which relies on the analysis of network detection capabilities. In our approach, the probability to detect an event depends on its magnitude, source receiver Euclidian distance and source receiver direction. The suggested method is proposed for study of the spatial distribution of the magnitude of completeness in a mining environment and here is applied to a 2-months acoustic emission (AE) data set recorded at the Morsleben salt mine, Germany. The dense seismic network and the large data set, which includes more than one million events, enable a detailed testing of the method. This method is proposed specifically for strongly heterogeneous media. Besides, it can also be used for specific network installations, with sensors with a sensitivity, dependent on the direction of the incoming wave (e.g. some piezoelectric sensors). In absence of strong heterogeneities, the standards PMC approach should be used. We show that the PMC estimations in mines strongly depend on the source receiver direction, and cannot be correctly accounted using a standard PMC approach. However, results can be improved, when adopting the proposed 3-D modification of the PMC method. Our analysis of one central horizontal and vertical section yields a magnitude of completeness of about M-c approximate to 1 (AE magnitude) at the centre of the network, which increases up to M-c approximate to 4 at further distances outside the network; the best detection performance is estimated for a NNE-SSE elongated region, which corresponds to the strike direction of the low-attenuating salt body. Our approach provides us with small-scale details about the capability of sensors to detect an earthquake, which can be linked to the presence of heterogeneities in specific directions. Reduced detection performance in presence of strong structural heterogeneities (cavities) is confirmed by synthetic waveform modelling in heterogeneous media.
Identification and characterization of growing large-scale en-echelon fractures in a salt mine
(2014)
The spatiotemporal seismicity of acoustic emission (AE) events recorded in the Morsleben salt mine is investigated. Almost a year after backfilling of the cavities from 2003, microevents are distributed with distinctive stripe shapes above cavities at different depth levels. The physical forces driving the creation of these stripes are still unknown. This study aims to find the active stripes and track fracture developments over time by combining two different temporal and spatial clustering techniques into a single methodological approach. Anomalous seismicity parameters values like sharp b-value changes for two active stripes are good indicators to explain possible stress accumulation at the stripe tips. We identify the formation of two new seismicity stripes and show that the AE activities in active clusters are migrated mostly unidirectional to eastward and upward. This indicates that the growth of underlying macrofractures is controlled by the gradient of extensional stress. Studying size distribution characteristic in terms of frequency-magnitude distribution and b-value in active phase and phase with constant seismicity rate show that deviations from the Gutenberg-Richter power law can be explained by the inclusion of different activity phases: (1) the inactive period before the formation of macrofractures, which is characterized by a deficit of larger events (higher b-values) and (2) the period of fracture growth characterized by the occurrence of larger events (smaller b-values).