About this Research Topic
Generally, induced earthquakes can be linked to different human activities such as: conventional and non-conventional hydrocarbon production, geothermal energy exploitation, mining operations, water impoundment, CO2 sequestration and natural gas storage operations. These activities can alter the stress field of the Earth’s shallow crust by pore pressure changes, or volume and/or mass changes inducing or triggering seismicity. Felt induced earthquakes, which are occurring as a consequence of these industrial operations, can put in danger the local population and can strongly undermine the societal acceptance of such activities.
The Mw 5.5 earthquake occurred in November 2017, near the city of Pohang (South Korea) and associated with an experimental Enhanced Geothermal System (EGS) project, highlighted the urgency of the development of reliable tools for the assessment and mitigation of the risks posed by induced seismicity. To achieve this ambitious objective a better understanding of the physical processes governing induced and triggered seismicity is therefore extremely important. Induced seismicity studies are generally based on the combination of seismological, hydrogeological and geodetic data as well as a wide range of modeling approaches and for these reasons this research field is characterized by a strong interdisciplinarity.
This Research Topic in Frontiers in Earth Science covers themes related to the analysis and modeling of induced and triggered seismicity at different scales (including lab scale applications) and associated with different industrial activities. Relevant manuscripts will include new methods for microseismicity characterization, case-studies of induced and triggered seismicity around the world, as well as new modeling strategies and experiments.
Topic Editor Francesco Grigoli is one of the founders of SeismiX. The other Topic Editors declare no competing interests with regard to the Research Topic subject.
Keywords: Induced Seismicity, Triggered Earthquakes, Microseismic Monitoring, Geomechanical Modeling, Fluid Injections
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.