Discriminating between natural and anthropogenic earthquakes: insights from the Emilia Romagna (Italy) 2012 seismic sequence.

ABSTRACT: The potential for oilfield activities to trigger earthquakes in seismogenic areas has been hotly debated. Our model compares the stress changes from remote water injection and a natural earthquake, both of which occurred in northern Italy in recent years, and their potential effects on a nearby Mw 5.9 earthquake that occurred in 2012. First, we calculate the Coulomb stress from 20 years of fluid injection in a nearby oilfield by using a poroelastic model. Then, we compute the stress changes for a 2011 Mw 4.5 earthquake that occurred close to the area of the 2012 mainshock. We found that anthropogenic activities produced an effect that was less than 10% of that generated by the Mw 4.5 earthquake. Therefore, the 2012 earthquake was likely associated with a natural stress increase. The probab

SUBMITTER: Albano M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5428219 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature