Hypocentre estimation of induced earthquakes in Groningen

Abstract

Induced earthquakes due to gas production have taken place in the province of Groningen in the northeast of The Netherlands since 1986. In the first years of seismicity, a sparse seismological network with large station distances from the seismogenic area in Groningen was used. The location of induced earthquakes was limited by the few and wide spread stations. Recently, the station network has been extended significantly and the location of induced earthquakes in Groningen has become routine work. Except for the depth estimation of the events. In the hypocentre method used for source location by the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI), the depth of the induced earthquakes is by default set to 3 km which is the average depth of the gas-reservoir. Alternatively, a differential traveltime for P-waves approach for source location is applied on recorded data from the extended network. The epicentre and depth of 87 induced earthquakes from 2014 to July 2016 have been estimated. The newly estimated epicentres are close to the induced earthquake locations from the current method applied by the KNMI. It is observed that most induced earthquakes take place at reservoir level. Several events in the same magnitude order are found near a brittle anhydrite layer in the overburden of mainly rock salt evaporites.