A Percolation Perspective for Gutenburg-Richter Scaling and b-values for Fracking Assocated Seismicity
Abstract
Published 60 years ago, the Gutenburg-Richter law provides a universal frequency-magnitude distribution for natural and induced seismicity. The GR law is a two parameter power-law with the b-value specifying the relative frequency of small and large events. For large catalogs of natural seismicity, the observed b-values are near one, while fracking associated seismicity has observed b-values near two, indicating relatively fewer large events. We have developed a computationally inexpensive percolation model for fracking that allows us to generate large catalogs of fracking associated seismicity. Using these catalogs, we show that different power-law fitting procedures produce different b-values for the same data set. This shows that care must be taken when determining and comparing b-values for fracking associated seismicity.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2016
- Bibcode:
- 2016AGUFMNG21A1804N
- Keywords:
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- 4415 Cascades;
- NONLINEAR GEOPHYSICSDE: 4475 Scaling: spatial and temporal;
- NONLINEAR GEOPHYSICS