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Induced Seismicity
Mainly due to human injection of fluids into the Earth which increases fluid pore
pressure and thus reduces cohesion of the rock.
o Deep injection conducted at Rocky Mountain Arsenal in 1960s and
Rangely oil field (both in Colorado) in 1970s. Good temporal correlation of
small earthquakes and injection was noted.
o Fracking
Fracking (breaking rock to release hydrocarbons) itself should
cause small earthquakes with M < 0.0. Fracking is primarily
performed in shale for natural gas extraction.
Starting in the early to mid-2000s, there was a dramatic
increase in earthquake activity in the central and eastern US.
Oklahoma went from an average of 2 earthquakes/year to
nearly 600.
Wastewater and brine from the fracking process is generally
disposed by deep injection.
This has resulted in earthquakes with magnitude up to the
low 5s in formerly quiet areas. Oklahoma had more
earthquakes than California in 2014.
There have been a few direct fracking associated earthquakes in
Ohio. These appear to result from the fracking fluid entering small
local faults and causing small (M ~ 2) earthquakes.
o Reservoir loading
Reservoir induced seismicity is due to loading by water (stress) and
by water forced into the ground. Many correlations are uncertain.
Example, Zipingpu Reservoir (Sichuan M 7.9 2008)
stress changes could have shortened recurrence rate by 10s
to 100s of years
but... calculations critically dependent on assumptions (fault
dip, location, etc.)
Located in a region of high natural seismicity
Earthquake Prediction
Item added for these lecture notes
o No one but fools, charlatans, and liars predict earthquakes.
o Prediction provides a happy hunting ground for amateurs, cranks, and
outright publicity-seeking fakers. - both attributed to C. F. Richter
o Both US and Japanese prediction programs missed the damaging
earthquakes of the 1990 and the early 21st century while studying other
areas
Semantically, forecast might be a better word than prediction
Long-term prediction
o Decades to Centuries
o Recurrence Rates
Usually modeled or demonstrated with a block and spring model
Ideally
o faults are moving at constant rates
o earthquakes should occur at equally spaced intervals
in time
In reality
o earthquakes vary in size (displacement varies)
o time between earthquakes varies
So we dont know exactly when or exactly how big the next
earthquake will be
Recurrence rates are usually specified as the average time
between large earthquakes for any given area. For example, Chile
is 130 30 years, southern Japan is 180 85 years; given the
variations, these are not societally useful forecasts.
Seismic Gaps
Regions that have not had an earthquake in a long time
one might expect one is overdue
o Identification of these has worked well many of
these gaps have ruptured in big earthquakes
o Item added for these lecture notes: There are some issues with the
seismic gap approach. One is that we know about long recurrence rates
for really large events. Tohoku, Japan, was considered a gap but it was
expected to be a M ~ 7.5 8 event, not 9+. Recurrence rates of >~1000
years would not be well known. Other areas (e.g., Lisbon, Portugal, 1755)
have big earthquakes with no known recurrence history. Other issues
exist, but at least in many places, it does seem to at least identify places
where earthquakes exist.