Joint inversion of source location and focal mechanism of microseismicity

Geophysics ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 81 (2) ◽  
pp. KS41-KS49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chuntao Liang ◽  
Yangyang Yu ◽  
Yihai Yang ◽  
Liang Kang ◽  
Chen Yin ◽  
...  

The seismic focal mechanism (FM) is an effective property to indicate source physics, as well as stress and strain distribution in regional, local, and microscales. We have developed an algorithm to jointly invert for the FM and source locations. For a given velocity structure, all possible combinations of source locations ([Formula: see text], [Formula: see text], and [Formula: see text]) and FM (strike, dip, and rake) were used to compute traveltimes and polarities of waveforms. Correcting normal moveout times and polarities and stacking all waveforms, the ([Formula: see text], [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text], strike, dip, and rake) combination that gave the strongest stacking power was identified as the optimal solution. Compared with the traditional source scanning algorithm (SSA) that only scanned source locations, this algorithm was thereby called the joint source scanning algorithm (jSSA). The jSSA method was tested rigorously, and it was applied to a hydraulic fracturing data set. Our work determined several advantages against the SSA method: (1) The jSSA method could identify many shear sources that could not be detected by the SSA method due to polarity variation; (2) the jSSA almost always yielded more events than the SSA method, and the added events could often provide much better characterization of the hydraulic fracturing; (3) the statistics of source mechanisms could provide additional knowledge on the orientation of fractures, as well as the local and regional stress and strain field; and (4) for those events that were detected by both methods, the stacking power of jSSA was always higher than that obtained in SSA.

2020 ◽  
Vol 222 (3) ◽  
pp. 1639-1655
Author(s):  
Xin Zhang ◽  
Corinna Roy ◽  
Andrew Curtis ◽  
Andy Nowacki ◽  
Brian Baptie

SUMMARY Seismic body wave traveltime tomography and surface wave dispersion tomography have been used widely to characterize earthquakes and to study the subsurface structure of the Earth. Since these types of problem are often significantly non-linear and have non-unique solutions, Markov chain Monte Carlo methods have been used to find probabilistic solutions. Body and surface wave data are usually inverted separately to produce independent velocity models. However, body wave tomography is generally sensitive to structure around the subvolume in which earthquakes occur and produces limited resolution in the shallower Earth, whereas surface wave tomography is often sensitive to shallower structure. To better estimate subsurface properties, we therefore jointly invert for the seismic velocity structure and earthquake locations using body and surface wave data simultaneously. We apply the new joint inversion method to a mining site in the United Kingdom at which induced seismicity occurred and was recorded on a small local network of stations, and where ambient noise recordings are available from the same stations. The ambient noise is processed to obtain inter-receiver surface wave dispersion measurements which are inverted jointly with body wave arrival times from local earthquakes. The results show that by using both types of data, the earthquake source parameters and the velocity structure can be better constrained than in independent inversions. To further understand and interpret the results, we conduct synthetic tests to compare the results from body wave inversion and joint inversion. The results show that trade-offs between source parameters and velocities appear to bias results if only body wave data are used, but this issue is largely resolved by using the joint inversion method. Thus the use of ambient seismic noise and our fully non-linear inversion provides a valuable, improved method to image the subsurface velocity and seismicity.


1992 ◽  
Vol 29 (7) ◽  
pp. 1509-1529 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tianson Yuan ◽  
G. D. Spence ◽  
R. D. Hyndman

A combined multichannel seismic reflection and refraction survey was carried out in July 1988 to study the Tertiary sedimentary basin architecture and formation and to define the crustal structure and associated plate interactions in the Queen Charlotte Islands region. Simultaneously with the collection of the multichannel reflection data, refractions and wide-angle reflections from the airgun array shots were recorded on single-channel seismographs distributed on land around Hecate Strait and Queen Charlotte Sound. For this paper a subset of the resulting data set was chosen to study the crustal structure in Queen Charlotte Sound and the nearby subduction zone.Two-dimensional ray tracing and synthetic seismogram modelling produced a velocity structure model in Queen Charlotte Sound. On a margin-parallel line, Moho depth was modelled at 27 km off southern Moresby Island but only 23 km north of Vancouver Island. Excluding the approximately 5 km of the Tertiary sediments, the crust in the latter area is only about 18 km thick, suggesting substantial crustal thinning in Queen Charlotte Sound. Such thinning of the crust supports an extensional mechanism for the origin of the sedimentary basin. Deep crustal layers with velocities of more than 7 km/s were interpreted in the southern portion of Queen Charlotte Sound and beneath the continental margin. They could represent high-velocity material emplaced in the crust from earlier subduction episodes or mafic intrusion associated with the Tertiary volcanics.Seismic velocities of both sediment and upper crust layers are lower in the southern part of Queen Charlotte Sound than in the region near Moresby Island. Well velocity logs indicate a similar velocity variation. Gravity modelling along the survey line parallel to the margin provides additional constraints on the structure. The data require lower densities in the sediment and upper crust of southern Queen Charlotte Sound. The low-velocity, low-density sediments in the south correspond to high-porosity marine sediments found in wells in that region and contrast with lower porosity nonmarine sediments in wells farther north.


Author(s):  
Anastasiya Fomochkina ◽  
Boris Bukchin

We consider the source of an earthquake in an approximation of instant point shift dislocation. Such a source is given by its depth, the focal mechanism determined by three angles (strike, dip, and slip), and the seismic moment characterizing the earthquake intensity. We determine the source depth and focal mechanism by a systematic exploration of 4D parametric space, and seismic moment - by solving the problem of minimization of the misfit between observed and calculated surface wave spectra for every combination of all other parameters. As is well known, the focal mechanism cannot be uniquely determined from the surface wave’s amplitude spectra only. We used P-wave first arrival polarities to select the optimal solution. Ana-lyzing the surface wave spectra at shorter periods, we describe the source in an approximation of the stress glut second moments. Using these moments we determine integral estimates of the geometry, the duration of the seismic source, and rupture propagation. The results of the application of this technique for two Alaska earthquakes that occurred in 2018 (with Mw7.9 in January and with Mw7.1 in November) are presented. The possibility of the fault plane identification, which based on the obtained estimates of the focal mechanisms and second mo-ments, is analyzed for both events. Bilateral model of the source is constructed.


2001 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Cocco ◽  
F. Ardizzoni ◽  
R. M. Azzara ◽  
L. Dall'Olio ◽  
A. Delladio ◽  
...  

Broadband seismograms recorded at a borehole three-component (high dynamic range) seismic station in the Po Valley (Northern Italy) were analyzed to study the velocity structure of the shallow sedimentary layers as well as the local site effects in soft sediments. The broadband borehole seismometer was installed at a depth of 135 m just below the quaternary basement, while a second digital broadband seismometer was installed in the same site at the Earth surface. The velocity structure in the shallower layers was determined both by means of cross-hole and up-hole measurements and by inverting seismic data recorded during a seismic exploration experiment.Velocity discontinuities are quite well related to the stratigraphy of the site. We are interested to record local earthquakes as well as regional and teleseismic events. The analyzed data set includes local, regional and teleseismic events, most of which were recorded during the seismic sequence that started on October 15, 1996, near Reggio Emilia 80 km away from the borehole site. The orientation of the borehole sensor is determined using the recordings of a teleseismic event and of some local earthquakes. The noise reduction for the borehole sensor is 2 decades in power spectral density at frequencies larger than 1.0 Hz. We studied the site amplification of the shallow alluvial layers by applying the spectral ratio method. We analyzed the spectral ratios of noise recorded by the surface and borehole seismometers as well as those from local earthquakes. We compared these observations with a theoretical model for the site response computed by the Haskell-Thomson method.


1996 ◽  
Vol 39 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Chiarabba ◽  
A. Amato

In this paper we provide P-wave velocity images of the crust underneath the Apennines (Italy), focusing on the lower crustal structure and the Moho topography. We inverted P-wave arrival times of earthquakes which occurred from 1986 to 1993 within the Apenninic area. To overcome inversion instabilities due to noisy data (we used bulletin data) we decided to resolve a minimum number of velocity parameters, inverting for only two layers in the crust and one in the uppermost mantle underneath the Moho. A partial inversion of only 55% of the overall dataset yields velocity images similar to those obtained with the whole data set, indicating that the depicted tomograms are stable and fairly insensitive to the number of data used. We find a low-velocity anomaly in the lower crust extending underneath the whole Apenninic belt. This feature is segmented by a relative high-velocity zone in correspondence with the Ortona-Roccamonfina line, that separates the northern from the southern Apenninic arcs. The Moho has a variable depth in the study area, and is deeper (more than 37 km) in the Adriatic side of the Northern Apennines with respect to the Tyrrhenian side, where it is found in the depth interval 22-34 km.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chengjie Li ◽  
Lidong Zhu ◽  
Zhongqiang Luo ◽  
Zhen Zhang ◽  
Yilun Liu ◽  
...  

In space-based AIS (Automatic Identification System), due to the high orbit and wide coverage of the satellite, there are many self-organizing communities within the observation range of the satellite, and the signals will inevitably conflict, which reduces the probability of ship detection. In this paper, to improve system processing power and security, according to the characteristics of neural network that can efficiently find the optimal solution of a problem, proposes a method that combines the problem of blind source separation with BP neural network, using the generated suitable data set to train the neural network, thereby automatically generating a traditional blind signal separation algorithm with a more stable separation effect. At last, through the simulation results of combining the blind source separation problem with BP neural network, the performance and stability of the space-based AIS can be effectively improved.


SPE Journal ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Gang Hui ◽  
Shengnan Chen ◽  
Zhangxin Chen ◽  
Fei Gu ◽  
Mathab Ghoroori ◽  
...  

Summary The relationships among formation properties, fracturing operations, and induced earthquakes nucleated at distinctive moments and positions remain unclear. In this study, a complete data set on formations, seismicity, and fracturing treatments is collected in Fox Creek, Alberta, Canada. The data set is then used to characterize the induced seismicity and evaluate its susceptibility toward fracturing stimulations via integration of geology, geomechanics, and hydrology. Five mechanisms are identified to account for spatiotemporal activation of the nearby faults in Fox Creek, where all major events [with a moment magnitude (Mw) greater than 2.5] are caused by the increase in pore pressure and poroelastic stress during the fracturing operation. In addition, an integrated geological index (IGI) and a combined geomechanical index (CGI) are first proposed to indicate seismicity susceptibility, which is consistent with the spatial distribution of induced earthquakes. Finally, mitigation strategy results suggest that enlarging a hydraulic fracture-fault distance and decreasing a fracturing job size can reduce the risk of potential seismic activities.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matteo Scarponi ◽  
György Hetényi ◽  
Jaroslava Plomerová ◽  
Stefano Solarino

<p>We present results from a joint inversion study of new seismic and gravity data to constrain a 2D high-resolution image of one of the most prominent geophysical anomalies of the European Alps: the Ivrea geophysical body (IGB). Our work exploits both new data and multidisciplinary a priori constraints, to better resolve the shallow crustal structure in the Ivrea-Verbano zone (IVZ), where the IGB is known to reach anomalously shallow depths and partially outcrop at the surface.</p><p>A variety of previous studies, ranging from gravity surveys to vintage refraction seismics and recent local earthquake tomographies (Solarino et al. 2018, Diehl et al. 2009), provide comprehensive but spatially sparse information on the IGB structure, which we aim at investigating at higher resolution, along a linear profile crossing the IVZ. To this purpose, we deployed 10 broadband seismic stations (MOBNET pool, IG CAS Prague), 5 km spaced along a linear West-East profile, along Val Sesia and crossing Lago Maggiore. This network operated for 27 months and allowed us to produce a new database of ca. 1000 seismic high-quality receiver functions (RFs). In addition, we collected new gravity data in the IVZ, with a data coverage of 1 gravity point every 1-2 km along the seismic profile. The newly collected data was used to set up an inversion scheme, in which RFs and gravity anomalies are jointly used to constrain the shape and the physical property contrasts across the IGB interface.</p><p>We model the IGB as a single interface between far-field constraints, whose geometry is defined by the coordinates of four nodes which may vary in space, and  density and V<sub>S</sub> shear-wave velocity contrasts associated with the interface itself, varying independently. A Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampling method with Metropolis-Hastings selection rule was implemented to efficiently explore the model space, directing the search towards better fitting areas.</p><p>For each model, we perform ray-tracing and RFs migration using the actual velocity structure both for migration and computation of synthetic RFs, to be compared with the observations via cross-correlation of the migration images. Similarly, forward gravity modelling for a 2D density distribution is implemented and the synthetic gravity anomaly is compared with the observations along the profile. The joint inversion performance is the product of these two misfits.</p><p>The inversion results show that the IGB reaches the shallowest depths in the western part of the profile, preferentially locating the IGB interface between 3 and 7 km depth over a horizontal distance of ca. 20 km (between Boccioleto and Civiasco, longitudes 8.1 and 8.3). Within this segment, the shallowest point reaches up to 1 km below sea level. The found density and velocity contrasts are in agreement with rock physics properties of various units observed in the field and characterized in earlier studies.</p>


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