Induced earthquakes currently pose a significant hazard in the central United States, but there is considerable uncertainty about the severity of their ground motions. We measure stress drops of 39 moderate-magnitude induced and tectonic earthquakes in the central United States and eastern North America. Induced earthquakes, more than half of which are shallower than 5 km, show a comparable med...

Injection-induced earthquakes pose a serious seismic hazard but also offer an opportunity to gain insight into earthquake physics. Currently used models relating the maximum magnitude of injection-induced earthquakes to injection parameters do not incorporate rupture physics. We develop theoretical estimates, validated by simulations, of the size of ruptures induced by localized pore-pressure p...

The central United States has undergone a dramatic increase in seismicity over the past 6 years (Fig. 1), rising from an average of 24M ≥3 earthquakes per year in the years 1973–2008 to an average of 193M ≥3 earthquakes in 2009–2014, with 688 occurring in 2014 alone. Multiple damaging earthquakes have occurred during this increase including the 2011M 5.6 Prague, Oklahoma, earthquake; the 2011 M...

Presented are the results of an earthquake magnitude homogenization exercise for several datasets of induced earthquakes. The result of this exercise is to show that homogeneous computation of earthquake momentand local-magnitude is useful in hazard assessment of Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGSs). Data include records from EGSs in Basel (Switzerland), Soultz (France) and Cooper Basin (Australi...

[1] We analyze the streamflow response of Sespe Creek, CA, to several large earthquakes. We find that flow increased after three earthquakes, and that the observed changes in flow have the same character. Both those earthquakes that induced static extension and those that induced static contraction cause flow to increase; streamflow thus appears to respond to dynamic strain. We find that all po...

Space-time clustering is the most striking departure of large earthquakes occurrence process from randomness. These clusters are usually described ex-post by a physics-based model in which earthquakes are triggered by Coulomb stress changes induced by other surrounding earthquakes. Notwithstanding the popularity of this kind of modeling, its ex-ante skill in terms of earthquake predictability g...

Abstract The HiQuake database documents all cases of earthquake sequences proposed on scientific grounds to have been induced by anthropogenic industrial activity. Because these range from being highly plausible unpersuasive, stakeholders requested be allocated plausibility grades. Since no questionnaire scheme existed that was sufficiently generalized applied the diverse in , we developed a ne...

In this study, I consider the ground motions generated by 11 moderate (Mw 4.0–5.6) earthquakes in the central and eastern United States that are thought or suspected to be induced by fluid injection. Using spatially rich intensity data from the U.S. Geological Survey “Did You Feel It?” system, I show the distance decay of intensities for all events is consistent with that observed for tectonic ...