Citation

Galis M, Ampuero JP, Mai PM, Cappa F. Sci. Adv. 2017; 3(12): eaap7528.

Affiliation

Institut Universitaire de France, Paris, France.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, American Association for the Advancement of Science)

DOI

10.1126/sciadv.aap7528

PMID

29291250

PMCID

PMC5744472

Abstract

Injection-induced earthquakes pose a serious seismic hazard but also offer an opportunity to gain insight into earthquake physics. Currently used models relating the maximum magnitude of injection-induced earthquakes to injection parameters do not incorporate rupture physics. We develop theoretical estimates, validated by simulations, of the size of ruptures induced by localized pore-pressure perturbations and propagating on prestressed faults. Our model accounts for ruptures growing beyond the perturbed area and distinguishes self-arrested from runaway ruptures. We develop a theoretical scaling relation between the largest magnitude of self-arrested earthquakes and the injected volume and find it consistent with observed maximum magnitudes of injection-induced earthquakes over a broad range of injected volumes, suggesting that, although runaway ruptures are possible, most injection-induced events so far have been self-arrested ruptures.

Language: en