Time Domain Source Parameter Estimation of Natural and Man-Induced Microearthquakes at the Geysers Geothermal Field

Abstract

Water injection in geothermal areas is the preferential strategy to sustain the natural production of geothermal resources. In this context, monitoring microearthquakes is a fundamental tool to track changes in the reservoirs in terms of soil composition, response to injections, and resource exploitation with space and time. Therefore, refined source characterization is crucial to better estimate the size, source mechanism, and rupture process of microearthquakes, as they are possibly related to industrial activities, and to identify any potential variation in the background seismicity. Standard approaches for source parameter estimation are ordinarily based on the modelling of Fourier displacement spectra and its characteristic parameters: the low-frequency spectral level and corner frequency. Here, we apply an innovative time domain technique that uses the curves of P-wave amplitude vs. time along the seismogram. This methodology allows estimation of seismic moment, source radius, and stress release from the plateau level and the corner time of the average logarithm of P-wave displacement versus time with the assumption of a triangular moment rate function, uniform rupture speed, and a constant/frequency-independent Q-factor. In the current paper, this time domain methodology is implemented on a selected catalog of microearthquakes consisting of 83 events with a moment magnitude ranging between 1.0 and 1.5 that occurred during a 7-year period (2007–2014) of fluid extraction/injection around Prati-9 and Prati-29 wells at The Geysers geothermal field. The results show that the time domain technique provides accurate seismic moment (moment magnitude) and rupture duration/radius estimates of microearthquakes down to the explored limit (M 1) while accounting for the anelastic attenuation effect in the radiated high-frequency wavefield. The retrieved source radius vs. moment scaling is consistent with a self-similar, constant stress drop scaling model, which proves an appropriate attenuation correction and the validity of the assumed, triangular moment rate function for microearthquake ruptures. Two alternative mechanical models are proposed to explain the observed difference (about two orders of magnitude) in the retrieved average stress release estimates between the time and frequency domain methods. We argue that the two quantities may not refer to the same physical quantity representing the stress release of earthquake ruptures. Either the smaller stress release values from the time domain method may indicate a larger fracture area (by a factor of 20) radiating the observed P-waveforms than the one estimated from the corner frequencies, or the frequency domain estimate is a proxy for dynamic stress release while the time domain is more representative of the static release. The latter is associated with a much lower dynamic friction value than static friction value at the fault during the rupture process.