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. 2024 Dec 28;14(1):30846.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-81632-3.

The plausibility of claimed induced seismicity

Max Wilkinson  1   2 , Najwa Mhana  1   3 , Miles P Wilson  1   4 , Gillian R Foulger  5   6 , Timur Tezel  7 , Jon G Gluyas  4   8
Affiliations

The plausibility of claimed induced seismicity

Max Wilkinson et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

Claims of industrially induced seismicity vary from indisputable to unpersuasive and yet the veracity of industrial induction is vital for regulatory and operational practice. Assessment schemes have been developed in response to this need. We report here an initial assessment of the reliability of all globally known cases of proposed human-induced earthquakes and invite specialists on particular cases to refine these results. 1235 cases were assessed, requiring over 1000 h of work. From the 881 cases for which scorable evidence is available, we class 87% as 'Confidently Induced', 10% as 'Probably Induced', 2% as 'Equivocal' and < 1% as 'Confidently Natural'. The most seismogenic activities are fracking, research, geothermal, water reservoir impoundment, conventional oil and gas. Least seismogenic activities are construction, deep penetrating bombs, coal bed methane. 354 cases (29%) lack enough information to be assessable. Future work could include applying data mining techniques including natural language processing and AI to uncover new evidence. Future best practice for rapid assessment of cases would ideally involve an independent panel of scientists who rapidly apply a questionnaire scheme, reach consensus, and inform a response.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Distribution of scores for each of the nine E-PIE Questions for 1235 cases in HiQuake conducted by the single assessor. Dotted fields indicate ‘no evidence’ scores where the assessor was unable to answer any of the nine E-PIE Questions.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
The interactive form used in the E-PIE assessment.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Visualisation of the four clusters overlain on frequency and cumulative frequency plots for the 881 cases in HiQuake which could be scored.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Number, E-PIE scores and summary statistics for cases within for each of the 16 activity classes in HiQuake. Classes are independent of one another and arranged by their median, which has not been normalised.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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