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EGS hydraulic stimulation monitoring by surface arrays - location accuracy and completeness magnitude: the Basel Deep Heat Mining Project case study

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Abstract

The potential and limits of monitoring induced seismicity by surface-based mini arrays was evaluated for the hydraulic stimulation of the Basel Deep Heat Mining Project. This project aimed at the exploitation of geothermal heat from a depth of about 4,630 m. As reference for our results, a network of borehole stations by Geothermal Explorers Ltd. provided ground truth information. We utilized array processing, sonogram event detection and outlier-resistant, graphical jackknife location procedures to compensate for the decrease in signal-to-noise ratio at the surface. We could correctly resolve the NNW–SSE striking fault plane by relative master event locations. Statistical analysis of our catalog data resulted in M L 0.36 as completeness magnitude, but with significant day-to-night dependency. To compare to the performance of borehole data with M W 0.9 as completeness magnitude, we applied two methods for converting M L to M W which raised our M C to M W in the range of 0.99–1.13. Further, the b value for the duration of our measurement was calculated to 1.14 (related to M L), respectively 1.66 (related to M W), but changes over time could not be resolved from the error bars.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Nicolas Deichmann and Dan Kahn for providing their results. We also thank Gregor Mokelke for assisting in data analysis. Marco Walter is acknowledged for field assistance. Guest editor S. Cesca and two anonymous reviewers are acknowledged for critical and useful comments which improved the paper. Figures 1, 3 and 4 have been published in similar form in Häge and Joswig (2011).

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  1. Institute of Geophysics, University of Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany

    Martin Häge, Patrick Blascheck & Manfred Joswig

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  1. Martin Häge
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  2. Patrick Blascheck
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  3. Manfred Joswig
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Correspondence to Martin Häge.

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Häge, M., Blascheck, P. & Joswig, M. EGS hydraulic stimulation monitoring by surface arrays - location accuracy and completeness magnitude: the Basel Deep Heat Mining Project case study. J Seismol 17, 51–61 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10950-012-9312-9

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