Towards an improved understanding of anthropogenic earthquakes

The first phase of this project involves the participation in the In-situ Stimulation and Circulation (ISC) experiment at the Grimsel Test Site. Goal of the experiment series is the permeability enhancement of a decameter rock volume intersected with two fault zones. The permeability enhancement process is accompanied by slip along the faults, which is achieved by high-pressure fluid injection (i.e. hydraulic shearing). Fluid injection is performed in several borehole sections distributed over two injection boreholes drilled trough the target fault zones. During the experiment hydraulic processes, mechanical processes and induced micro-seismicity are monitored with an unprecedented multi-sensor monitoring system leading to a unique and high quality dataset.
The goal of the second phase of the project is the detailed processing of recorded micro-seismic data. The objective is to determine a wide range of earthquake source parameters. The adaptation and further development of seismological processing techniques to the decameter scale make this task particularly delicate.

The third phase of the project will bring together micro-seismic data and other measured data during the experiment and shed light into the physical understanding of induced earthquakes.

Finally, forecasting skills of models for induced seismicity are tested on the Grimsel high quality dataset.