Man-made earthquakes prevention through monitoring and discharging their causative stress-deformed states

Abstract

Despite our understanding of the different mechanisms of man-made earthquakes, their short-term prediction and prevention is yet to be attained. In this study, we propose an integrated four-step approach to predict and prevent man-made earthquakes or reduce their chance of occurrence. Our four-step approach includes: 1) locating the highly anomalous zones of microseismic emission (MSE) that result from the stress-deformed state inside a geological formation and often represents the "seismic nuclei" for impending earthquakes, 2) Monitoring the variations and dynamics of the anomalous MSE zones over a 15 period of one lunar month, 3) inducing a creep-discharging of the MSE zones using a vibroseis seismic source at the ground surface, and 4) monitoring the same MSE zones following the creep-discharge to determine whether the stress-deformed state was released and the chance of potential earthquake occurrence has been eliminated or reduced. The proposed full four-step approach has never implemented at one single location. Nevertheless, the steps have been tested separately at different sites and have proven successful. We propose conducting the full four-step approach at various locations of potential man-made 20 earthquake activities around the world including the state of Oklahoma in the United States.