Presented by: Prof. Jean-Philippe Avouac
Affiliation: California Institute of Technology
Location: 3853 Slichter Hall
Abstract: Earthquakes occur naturally driven by tectonic processes, but they can also be induced by human activities. In particular, earthquakes induced by extraction or injection of fluids in the subsurface — during gas production, CO2 storage of geothermal operations for example — provide an opportunity to investigate earthquake physics and to test earthquake forecasting models. Our research shows that, in such examples, spatial and temporal variations in seismicity rate can be predicted reliably from stress changes inferred from reservoir operations and surface deformation measurements. These advances can improve methods for time-dependent seismic hazard assessment. However, forecasting individual events remains a major challenge.