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Figure: Earthquakes with magnitude (M) ≥ 3 in the U.S. midcontinent, 1967–2012. After decades of a steady earthquake rate (average of 21 events/year), activity increased starting in 2001 and peaked at 188 earthquakes in 2011. Human-induced earthquakes are suspected to be partially responsible for the increase (From Ellsworth, 2013).

Project Overview

Higher resolution seismic catalogs for active basins in the Central United States (CUS) can help answer fundamental science questions related to fluid-injection and induced earthquake potential that are of increasing concern to the public. Data from Earthscope’s Transportable Array (TA) coupled with composite methods of earthquake detection will enable us to probe CUS basins for more complete background seismicity rates and spatial distributions, in addition to potentially illuminating subtle rate changes related to fluid injection and transient stressing. Here, we outline our approach to obtaining a more comprehensive understanding of basin seismicity using TA data through a joint method of frequency domain earthquake detection, clustering and visualization, combined with subspace (Harris and Paik, 2006) event detection. These methods capitalize on discriminatory spectral characteristics to decrease non-earthquake false detections and rely on clustering and array visualization to validate and associate related earthquake detections. These enhanced catalogs will help reduce the current catalog completeness levels to help determine if transient stresses from the passage of relatively large surface waves dynamically trigger events within these basins or otherwise change the distribution of induced seismicity. 

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