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At least 631 records · Page 35
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2021

Network analysis of earthquake ground motion spatial correlation: a case study with the San Jacinto seismic nodal array

SUMMARY The spatial correlation of earthquake ground motion intensity can be measured from strong motion data; however, the data used in past studies is sparsely sampled in space, and only the interstation distance was considered as a correlation variable. These limitations mean that we have only weak constraints on the true correlation structure of ground motion and that potentially important aspects of spatial correlation are unconstrained. In this study, we combine a large-N seismic array and graph analytics to explore this issue at a local scale using small local and regional earthquakes. Our result suggests site conditions, and how they interact with the incident seismic wavefield, strongly condition the spatial correlation of ground motion. Future progress in characterizing ground motion spatial variability will require dense wavefield measurements, either through nodal deployments, or perhaps distributed acoustic sensing measurements, of seismic wavefields. Aftershock sequences of major earthquakes would provide particularly data-rich targets of opportunity.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

Imaging the crust and uppermost mantle structure of Portugal (West Iberia) with seismic ambient noise

SUMMARY We present a new high-resolution 3-D shear wave velocity (Vs) model of the crust and uppermost mantle beneath Portugal, inferred from ambient seismic noise tomography. We use broad-band seismic data from a dense temporary deployment covering the entire Portuguese mainland between 2010 and 2012 in the scope of the WILAS project. Vertical component data are processed using phase correlation and phase weighted stack to obtain empirical Green functions (EGFs) for 2016 station pairs. Further, we use a random sampling and subset stacking strategy to measure robust Rayleigh-wave group velocities in the period range 7–30 s and associated uncertainties. The tomographic inversion is performed in two steps: First, we determine group-velocity lateral variations for each period. Next, we invert them at each grid point using a new trans-dimensional inversion scheme to obtain the 3-D shear wave velocity model. The final 3-D model extends from the upper crust (5 km) down to the uppermost mantle (60 km) and has a lateral resolution of ∼50 km. In the upper and middle crusts, the Vs anomaly pattern matches the tectonic units of the Variscan Massif and Alpine basins. The transition between the Lusitanian Basin and the Ossa Morena Zone is marked by a contrast between moderate- and high-velocity anomalies, in addition to two arched earthquake lineations. Some faults, namely, the Manteigas–Vilariça–Bragança fault and the Porto–Tomar–Ferreira do Alentejo fault, have a clear signature from the upper crust down to the uppermost mantle (60 km). Our 3-D shear wave velocity model offers new insights into the continuation of the main tectonic units at depth and contributes to better understanding the seismicity of Portugal.

Silveira, Graça (ORCID:0000000221102554)↗
DOE OSTI2023

Emulation of seismic-phase traveltimes with machine learning

SUMMARY We present a machine learning (ML) method for emulating seismic-phase traveltimes that are computed using a global-scale 3-D earth model and physics-based ray tracing. Accurate traveltime predictions based on 3-D earth models are known to reduce the bias of event location estimates, increase our ability to assign phase labels to seismic detections and associate detections to events. However, practical use of 3-D models is challenged by slow computational speed and the unwieldiness of pre-computed lookup tables that are often large and have prescribed computational grids. In this work, we train a ML emulator using pre-computed traveltimes, resulting in a compact and computationally fast way to approximate traveltimes that are based on a 3-D earth model. Our model is trained using approximately 850 million P-wave traveltimes that are based on the global LLNL-G3D-JPS model, which was developed for more accurate event location. The training-set consists of traveltimes between 10 393 global seismic stations and randomly sampled event locations that provide a prescribed, distance-dependent geographic sample density for each station. Prediction accuracy is dependent on event-station distance and whether the station was included in the training set. For stations included in the training set the mean absolute deviation (MAD) of the difference between traveltimes computed using ray tracing through the 3-D model and the ML emulator for local, regional, and teleseismic distances are 0.090, 0.125 and 0.121 s, respectively. For tested station locations not included in the training set, MAD values for the three distance ranges increase to 0.173, 0.219 and 0.210 s, respectively. Empirical traveltime residuals for a global reference data are indistinguishable when ML emulation or the 3-D model is used to compute traveltimes. This result holds regardless of whether the recording station is used in ML training or not.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2025

Divide and conquer: separating the two probabilities in seismic phase picking

There are two fundamental probabilities in the seismic phase picking process—the probability of the existence of a seismic phase (detection probability) and the probability associated with the phase arrival time estimation (timing probability). The nearly ubiquitous approach in developing deep learning phase picking models is to use a kernel, such as a truncated Gaussian, to mask the labelled phase arrival time and train a segmentation model. Once a model is trained, the times of the peaks in the output are taken as phase arrival times (picks), and the height of the peaks are taken as ‘probability’ of the picks. Here, we show that this ‘probability’ represents neither the detection nor the timing probability because this approach forces the output to follow the shape of the kernel. We introduce an approach using two models to estimate these two distinct probabilities. We use a binary classifier with a calibrated confidence to address the detection probability and a multiclass classifier to obtain a probability mass function to address the timing probability. This new approach can make the deep learning-based phase picking process more interpretable and provide options to logically control seismic monitoring workflows.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2017

Comment on “How will induced seismicity in Oklahoma respond to decreased saltwater injection rates?” by C. Langenbruch and M. D. Zoback

The state of Oklahoma has experienced an unprecedented increase in earthquake activity since 2009, likely driven by large-scale wastewater injection operations. Statewide injection rates peaked in early 2015 and steadily decreased thereafter, approximately coinciding with collapsing oil prices and regulatory action. If seismic activity is primarily driven by fluid injection, a noticeable seismogenic response to the decrease in injection rates is expected. Langenbruch and Zoback suggest that “the probability of potentially damaging larger events, should significantly decrease by the end of 2016 and approach historic levels within a few years.” We agree that the rate of small earthquakes has decreased toward the second half of 2016. However, their specific predictions about seismic hazard require reexamination. We test the influence of the model parameters of Langenbruch and Zoback based on fits to observed seismicity distributions. The results suggest that a range of realistic aftershock decay rates and b values can lead to an increase in moderate earthquake probabilities from 37 to 80% in 2017 without any further alteration to the model. In addition, the observation that all four M ≥ 5 earthquakes to date occurred when injection rates were below the triggering threshold of Langenbruch and Zoback challenges the applicability of the model for the most societally significant events.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2018

Machine learning reveals cyclic changes in seismic source spectra in Geysers geothermal field

The earthquake rupture process comprises complex interactions of stress, fracture, and frictional properties. New machine learning methods demonstrate great potential to reveal patterns in time-dependent spectral properties of seismic signals and enable identification of changes in faulting processes. Clustering of 46,000 earthquakes of 0.3 < ML < 1.5 from the Geysers geothermal field (CA) yields groupings that have no reservoir-scale spatial patterns but clear temporal patterns. Events with similar spectral properties repeat on annual cycles within each cluster and track changes in the water injection rates into the Geysers reservoir, indicating that changes in acoustic properties and faulting processes accompany changes in thermomechanical state. The methods open new means to identify and characterize subtle changes in seismic source properties, with applications to tectonic and geothermal seismicity.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2016

Surface uplift and time-dependent seismic hazard due to fluid injection in eastern Texas

Observations that unequivocally link seismicity and wastewater injection are scarce. We show that wastewater injection in eastern Texas causes uplift, detectable in radar interferometric data up to >8 kilometers from the wells. Using measurements of uplift, reported injection data, and a poroelastic model, we computed the crustal strain and pore pressure. We infer that an increase of >1 megapascal in pore pressure in rocks with low compressibility triggers earthquakes, including the 4.8–moment magnitude event that occurred on 17 May 2012, the largest earthquake recorded in eastern Texas. Seismic activity increased even while injection rates declined, owing to diffusion of pore pressure from earlier periods with higher injection rates. Finally, induced seismicity potential is suppressed where tight confining formations prevent pore pressure from propagating into crystalline basement rocks.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2019

Seismic Analysis Code 2000

The Seismic Analysis Code (SAC2000) is a general purpose interactive program designed for the study of sequential signals, especially time-series data. Emphasis has been placed on analysis tools used by research seismologists in the detailed study of seismic events. Analysis capabilities include general arithmetic operations, Fourier transforms, spectral estimation techniques, IIR and FIR filtering, signal stacking, decimation, interpolation, correlation, and seismic phase picking. SAC2000 also contains an extensive graphics capability. Versions are available for a wide variety of computer systems. SAC2000 was developed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Barno, Justin↗
DOE OSTI2026

Geophysical Monitoring Program Core Seismic Libraries

The Geophysical Monitoring Program Core Seismic Libraries contain a broad array of seismic and waveform analysis libraries useful for a wide range of seismic analysis processes. These include signal processing, travel time calculation, waveform correlation, array processing, geometry and geodesy, and plotting libraries.

Barno, JustinG [Lawrence Livermore National Labora↗
DOE OSTI2022

Host-region parameters for an adjustable model for crustal earthquakes to facilitate the implementation of the backbone approach to building ground-motion logic trees in probabilistic seismic hazard analysis

The backbone approach to constructing a ground-motion logic tree for probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA) can address shortcomings in the traditional approach of populating the branches with multiple existing, or potentially modified, ground-motion models (GMMs) by rendering more transparent the relationship between branch weights and the resulting distribution of predicted accelerations. To capture epistemic uncertainty in a tractable manner, there are benefits in building the logic tree through the application of successive adjustments for differences in source, path, and site characteristics between the host region of the selected backbone GMM and the target region for which the PSHA is being conducted. The implementation of this approach is facilitated by selecting a backbone GMM that is amenable to such host-to-target adjustments for individual source, path, and site characteristics. The NGA-West2 GMM of Chiou and Youngs (CY14) has been identified as a highly adaptable model for crustal seismicity that is well suited to such adjustments. Rather than using generic source, path, and site characteristics assumed appropriate for the host region, the final suite of adjusted GMMs for the target region will be better constrained if the host-region parameters are defined specifically on the basis of their compatibility with the CY14 backbone GMM. To this end, making use of a recently developed crustal shear-wave velocity profile consistent with CY14, we present an inversion of the model to estimate the key source and path parameters, namely the stress parameter and the anelastic attenuation. With these outputs, the effort in constructing a ground-motion logic tree for any PSHA dealing with crustal seismicity can be focused primarily on the estimation of the target-region characteristics and their associated uncertainties. The inversion procedure can also be adapted for any application in which different constraints might be relevant.

Stafford, Peter J.↗
DOE OSTI2015

Seismic Retrofit for Electric Power Systems

Our paper develops a two-stage stochastic program and solution procedure to optimize the selection of seismic retrofit strategies to increase the resilience of electric power systems against earthquake hazards. The model explicitly considers the range of earthquake events that are possible and, for each, an approximation of the distribution of damage experienced. Furthermore, this is important because electric power systems are spatially distributed and so their performance is driven by the distribution of component damage. We also test this solution procedure against the nonlinear integer solver in LINGO 13 and apply the formulation and solution strategy to the Eastern Interconnection, where seismic hazard stems from the New Madrid seismic zone.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2016

Threshold magnitudes for a multichannel correlation detector in background seismicity

Colocated explosive sources often produce correlated seismic waveforms. Multichannel correlation detectors identify these signals by scanning template waveforms recorded from known reference events against "target" data to find similar waveforms. This screening problem is challenged at thresholds required to monitor smaller explosions, often because non-target signals falsely trigger such detectors. Therefore, it is generally unclear what thresholds will reliably identify a target explosion while screening non-target background seismicity. Here, we estimate threshold magnitudes for hypothetical explosions located at the North Korean nuclear test site over six months of 2010, by processing International Monitoring System (IMS) array data with a multichannel waveform correlation detector. Our method (1) accounts for low amplitude background seismicity that falsely triggers correlation detectors but is unidentifiable with conventional power beams, (2) adapts to diurnally variable noise levels and (3) uses source-receiver reciprocity concepts to estimate thresholds for explosions spatially separated from the template source. Furthermore, we find that underground explosions with body wave magnitudes m b = 1.66 are detectable at the IMS array USRK with probability 0.99, when using template waveforms consisting only of P -waves, without false alarms. We conservatively find that these thresholds also increase by up to a magnitude unit for sources located 4 km or more from the Feb.12, 2013 announced nuclear test.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2019

Azimuthally Dependent Seismic-Wave Coherence at the Source Physics Experiment Large-N Array

Abstract We report on azimuthally dependent seismic scattering at the Source Physics Experiment (SPE) using the large-N array. The large-N array recorded the seismic wavefield produced by the SPE-5 buried chemical explosion, which occurred in April 2016 at the Nevada National Security Site, U.S.A. By selecting a subset of vertical-component geophones from the large-N array, we formed 10 linear arrays, with different nominal source–receiver azimuths as well as six 2D arrays. For each linear array, we analyze wavefield coherency as a function of frequency and interstation distance. For both the P arrival and post-P arrivals, the coherency is higher in the northeast propagation direction, which is consistent with the strike of the steeply dipping Boundary fault adjacent to the northwest side of the large-N array. Conventional array analysis using a suite of 2D arrays indicates that the presence of the fault may help explain the azimuthal dependence of the seismic-wave coherency for all wave types. This fault, which separates granite from alluvium, may be acting as a vertically oriented refractor and/or waveguide.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

Seismically Detecting Nuclear Reactor Operations Using a Power Spectral Density (PSD) Misfit Detector

To explore the ability to indirectly detect and attribute various operations conducted at a nuclear reactor using waveform data, we investigated the seismic signals recorded near the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) located at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Specifically, we processed seismic data collected from a single seismoacoustic station, WACO, near the HFIR facility, and employed a power spectral density misfit detector to identify signals of interest and associate the detections with operational events. Initial results suggest that this method provides a promising means of regularly detecting at least 19 unique operations. Furthermore, with additional station deployment and more comprehensive data logs, we anticipate that future analysis will offer an additional means to seismically monitor nuclear reactors (such as HFIR) health and performance more accurately.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2021

A Frequency-Domain-Based Algorithm for Detecting Microseismicity Using Dense Surface Seismic Arrays

We propose a new frequency-domain-based algorithm for detecting small-magnitude seismic events using dense surface seismic arrays. Our proposed method takes advantage of the high energy carried by S waves, and approximate known source locations, which are used to rotate the horizontal components to obtain the maximum amplitude. By surrounding the known source area with surface geophones, we achieve a favorable geometry for locating the detected seismic events with the backprojection method. To test our new detection method, we used a dense circular array, consisting of 151 5 Hz three-component geophones, over a 5 km aperture that was in operation at the Utah Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy (FORGE) in southcentral Utah. We apply the new detection method during a small-scale test injection phase at FORGE, and during an aftershock sequence of an Mw 4.1 earthquake located ~30 km north of the geophone array, within the Black Rock volcanic field. We are able to detect and locate microseismic events (Mw<0) during injections, despite the high level of anthropogenic activity, and several aftershocks that are missing from the regional catalog. By comparing our method with known algorithms that operate both in the time and frequency domain, we show that our proposed method performs better in the case of the FORGE injection monitoring, and equally well for the off-array aftershock sequence. Our new method has the potential to improve microseismic event detections even in extremely noisy environments, and the proposed location scheme serves as a direct discriminant between true and false detections.

Geochemistry & Geophysics↗
DOE OSTI2024

Seismic Tomography 2024

Seismic tomography is the most abundant source of information about the internal structure of the Earth at scales ranging from a few meters to thousands of kilometers. It constrains the properties of active volcanoes, earthquake fault zones, deep reservoirs and storage sites, glaciers and ice sheets, or the entire globe. It contributes to outstanding societal problems related to natural hazards, resource exploration, underground storage, and many more. The recent advances in seismic tomography are being translated to nondestructive testing, medical ultrasound, and helioseismology. Nearly 50 yr after its first successful applications, this article offers a snapshot of modern seismic tomography. Focused on major challenges and particularly promising research directions, it is intended to guide both Earth science professionals and early-career scientists. The individual contributions by the coauthors provide diverse perspectives on topics that may at first seem disconnected but are closely tied together by a few coherent threads: multiparameter inversion for properties related to dynamic processes, data quality, and geographic coverage, uncertainty quantification that is useful for geologic interpretation, new formulations of tomographic inverse problems that address concrete geologic questions more directly, and the presentation and quantitative comparison of tomographic models. Finally, it remains to be seen which of these problems will be considered solved, solved to some extent, or practically unsolvable over the next decade.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

Rupture Jumping and Seismic Complexity in Models of Earthquake Cycles for Fault Stepovers with Off-Fault Plasticity

ABSTRACT Fault stepovers are prime examples of geometric complexity in natural fault zones that may affect seismic hazard by determining whether an earthquake rupture continues propagating or abruptly stops. However, the long-term pattern of seismicity near-fault stepovers and underlying mechanisms of rupture jumping in the context of earthquake cycles are rarely studied. Leveraging a hybrid numerical scheme combining the finite element and the spectral boundary integral methods, FEBE, we carry out fully dynamic simulations of sequences of earthquakes and aseismic slip for both compressive and tensile stepovers with off-fault plasticity. We consider a rate-and-state friction law for the fault friction and pressure-sensitive Drucker–Prager plasticity for the off-fault bulk response. We observe that the accumulation of plastic deformation, an indication of off-fault damage, is significantly different in the two cases, with more plastic deformation projected in the overlapping region for the tensile stepover. The seismic pattern for a tensile stepover is more complex than for a compressive stepover, and incorporating plasticity also increases complexity, relative to the elastic case. A tensile stepover with off-fault plasticity shows rupture segmentation, temporal clustering, and frequent rupture jumping from one fault to another. These results shed light on possible mechanisms of rupture jumping in fault stepovers as well as the long-term evolution of the fault zone.

Geochemistry & Geophysics↗
DOE OSTI2017

Identifying and Correcting Timing Errors at Seismic Stations in and around Iran

A fundamental component of seismic research is the use of phase arrival times, which are central to event location, Earth model development, and phase identification, as well as derived products. Hence, the accuracy of arrival times is crucial. However, errors in the timing of seismic waveforms and the arrival times based on them may go unidentified by the end user, particularly when seismic data are shared between different organizations. Here, we present a method used to analyze travel-time residuals for stations in and around Iran to identify time periods that are likely to contain station timing problems. For the 14 stations with the strongest evidence of timing errors lasting one month or longer, timing corrections are proposed to address the problematic time periods. Finally, two additional stations are identified with incorrect locations in the International Registry of Seismograph Stations, and one is found to have erroneously reported arrival times in 2011.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗