High-resolution borehole earthquake monitoring at San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth, Parkfield, California

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that borehole earthquake monitoring at the San Andreas Fault provides detailed seismic data and more accurate local earthquake locations near the borehole compared to surface monitoring, revealing fault structures.

Contribution

It introduces a high-resolution borehole seismic array at SAFOD and compares its earthquake locations with surface data, showing improved accuracy and structural insights.

Findings

Borehole monitoring recorded 125 earthquakes in 13 days.

Borehole locations aligned with long-term surface data.

Borehole data revealed fault structures consistent with surface observations.

Abstract

Downhole earthquake monitoring, without the complex effects from the near surface, can record more and better seismic data than monitoring on surface. The San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth (SAFOD) is a borehole observatory equipped with different instruments inside to study the earthquake mechanism of the San Andreas fault at Parkfield, California. During April to May in 2005, Paulsson deployed an 80-level 3-component geophone array in the SAFOD main hole, and continuously recorded seismic data for about 13 days. We located 125 local earthquakes from the borehole earthquake monitoring data using a homogeneous velocity model and compared it with 35 earthquakes' locations from surface earthquake monitoring by the United State Geological Survey (USGS) during the same monitoring time. The borehole earthquake locating is assumably more accurate in the borehole's vicinity. We also compared the result with 1,074 earthquakes' locations from the surface earthquake monitoring in the last 9 years from 2015 to 2024. The hypocenters from our nearly 2 weeks' borehole earthquake monitoring form similar structures as that from the 9 years' surface earthquake monitoring by the USGS.