In recent years induced seismicity has become an important topic of discussion at a political, scientific and societal level, especially owing to the concern that underground related industrial activities, could cause damaging earthquakes.
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.
In recent years induced seismicity has become an important topic of discussion at a political, scientific and societal level, especially owing to the concern that underground related industrial activities, could cause damaging earthquakes.
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.