Does seismicity delineate zones where future large earthquakes are likely to occur in intraplate environments?
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Abstract:
The spatial distribution of seismicity is often used as one of the indicators of zones where future large earthquakes are likely to occur. This is particularly true for intraplate regions such as the central and eastern United States, where geology is markedly enigmatic for delineating seismically active areas. Although using past seismicity for this purpose may be intuitively appealing, it is only scientifically justified if the tendency for past seismicity to delineate potential locations of future large earthquakes is well-established as a real, measurable, physical phenomenon as opposed to an untested conceptual model. This paper attempts to cast this problem in the form of scientifically testable hypotheses and to test those hypotheses. Ideally, thousands (or even millions) of years of data would be necessary to solve this problem. Lacking such a long-term record of seismicity, I make the "logical leap" of using data from other regions as a proxy for repeated samples of seismicity in intraplate regions. Three decades of global data from the National Earthquake Information Center are used to explore how the tendency for past seismicity to delineate locations of future large earthquakes varies for regions with different tectonic environments. This exploration helps to elucidate this phenomenon for intraplate environments. Applying the results of this exercise to the central and eastern United States, I estimate that future earthquakes in the central and eastern United States (including large and damaging earthquakes) have ∼86% probability of occurring within 36 km of past earthquakes, and ∼60% probability of occurring within 14 km of past earthquakes.Keywords:
Earthquake prediction
Proxy (statistics)
Stress field
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The spatial distribution of seismicity is often used as one of the indicators of zones where future large earthquakes are likely to occur. This is particularly true for intraplate regions such as the central and eastern United States, where geology is markedly enigmatic for delineating seismically active areas. Although using past seismicity for this purpose may be intuitively appealing, it is only scientifically justified if the tendency for past seismicity to delineate potential locations of future large earthquakes is well-established as a real, measurable, physical phenomenon as opposed to an untested conceptual model. This paper attempts to cast this problem in the form of scientifically testable hypotheses and to test those hypotheses. Ideally, thousands (or even millions) of years of data would be necessary to solve this problem. Lacking such a long-term record of seismicity, I make the "logical leap" of using data from other regions as a proxy for repeated samples of seismicity in intraplate regions. Three decades of global data from the National Earthquake Information Center are used to explore how the tendency for past seismicity to delineate locations of future large earthquakes varies for regions with different tectonic environments. This exploration helps to elucidate this phenomenon for intraplate environments. Applying the results of this exercise to the central and eastern United States, I estimate that future earthquakes in the central and eastern United States (including large and damaging earthquakes) have ∼86% probability of occurring within 36 km of past earthquakes, and ∼60% probability of occurring within 14 km of past earthquakes.
Earthquake prediction
Proxy (statistics)
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We simulated the occurrence of both intraplate and interplate earthquakes in a simple spring-slider-dashpot model that includes both types of earthquake faults. We found that recurrence intervals of intraplate earthquakes are not controlled by the velocity of the relative plate motion but by the viscosity in the ductile fault zone, the coefficients of friction of both the interplate and intraplate earthquake faults, and the stress drop of intraplate earthquakes, when the stress drop of intraplate earthquakes is assumed to be only a small part of the total shear stress. These findings may open new avenues for the physics-based long-term forecasting of intraplate earthquakes.
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In this paper, the relationship between causes and prediction of intraplate earthquakes and two ways of nealizing physical prediction are discussed. Commontaries are given on the achievement in the first way of physical prediction which is based on the relationship between direct cause of earthquakes and their precusors. The paper explores the potential posibilities of the second way of physical prediction, which is based on me relation ship between all kind of causes which control the whole dynamic processes of genesis, happening, development of earthquakes, and their precusors. The research directions are indicated for this second way.
Earthquake prediction
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Seismogenic Index of a Reservoir Location Estimated from Tectonic Seismicity and Crustal Deformation
We address the question whether tectonic seismic activity within an area where a fluid injection is planned can be used to evaluate its seismotectonic state. For this purpose, we expand and reformulate the theoretical framework which essentially applies to describe the occurrence of fluid-induced seismicity to the case of tectonic seismicity. Based on this model, we introduce the tectonic seismogenic index which can be determined prior to an injection if the tectonic seismicity rate and the crustal deformation rate are known in the reservoir region. We apply the derived formalism to reservoir locations where the seismogenic index for fluid-induced seismicity had already been obtained. Thus, we can examine whether the two differently defined seismogenic indices are comparable for an injection location. Our results show that the tectonic seismogenic index can be used as a proxy for the seismogenic index of fluid-induced seismicity. Thus, we conclude that our formalism can contribute to avoid the occurrence of large-magnitude fluid-induced earthquakes by properly selecting and developing reservoir locations.
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The Spatial and Genetic Relation between Seismicity and Tectonic Trends, the Bitter Lakes Area, North-East Egypt The Bitter Lakes area was subjected to numerous seismic events which are genetically related to the well-known tectonic trends in NE Egypt. Based on the focal mechanism solutions and structural lineaments analysis, the spatial and genetic relationships of seismicity to these tectonic trends were clarified. The data set included eight focal mechanisms of recently recorded earthquakes that occurred during the period 1984–2003, and the structural lineaments extrtacted from the enhanced shaded relief image of the study area.
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Despite that earthquakes in stable continental regions (SCR) often cause more damage than interplate seismicity, they remain poorly understood. This is mainly because of the lower rate of intraplate seismicity and because of its different behaviour compared to the better-known seismicity at the plate boundary. Understand the characteristics of the intraplate seismicity is a challenge for the seismic risk studies. We study and characterise an SCR (NW Iberian Peninsula), which not only registers moderate instrumental intraplate seismicity, but also important historic seismicity and paleoseismic activity. To tackle some of the difficulties posed by intraplate seismicity, we analyse a wide and multidisciplinary data set (e.g., geological structures, seismicity, focal mechanisms, and geophysical data). Seismicity in this region is not associated with an old rift, but with inherited faults widely distributed throughout the region with a great variety of orientations. The reactivation kinematics of these faults are coherent with the current regional stresses. Instrumental seismicity is not associated with the large active faults nor with crustal limits. Seismicity is mainly clustered in swarms and sequences. Although seismic swarms present lower magnitudes, they are the most common. Based on swarms' characteristics (high b-values, upward spatiotemporal migration), reported mantellic CO2 in some thermal springs, and the reactivation of inherited steeply-dipping faults, we propose the migration of deep fluids through steeply-dipping fractured areas as the cause of the intraplate seismicity. These processes could increase the pore pressure and decrease the stresses necessary for the fault rupture in a fault-valve behaviour. In general, in intraplate context, the important control in the seismicity of the inherited fault systems favourable oriented under the current stress tensor is observed, and also the need for mechanisms that can decrease the effective stress for the fault ruptures. Mechanisms as hydrothermal fluids in arterial faults with fault-valve processes has been identified as an effective driver of intraplate seismicity, playing an important role in stability of tectonic faults. The large number and variety of these faults, that share the low strain rates in intraplate polyorogenic context, may explain the different characteristics of these intraplate regions compared with the interplate regions, as the "unanticipated" behaviour, variety of kinematics, the long quiescence periods without seismicity associated and erosion obliterating their morphotectonic expression.
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