The February 3, 1995, ML 5.1 Seismic Event in the Trona Mining District of Southwestern Wyoming

Pechmann, James C.; Walter, William R.; Nava, Susan J.; Arabasz, Walter J.

doi:10.1785/gssrl.66.3.25

Cited by 52 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…However, as the number of permanently installed instruments continues to grow, it is becoming common to record so-called exotic sources. Examples of exotic sources that have recently been studied seismically include supersonic aircraft (Kanamori et al, 1991), bolides (Chael and Spalding, 1996), rockfalls (Uhrhammer, 1996), geysers (Kedar et al, 1996), mine collapses (Pechmann et al, 1995;Yang et al, 1998), quarry blasts , industrial explosions (Ichinose et al, 1999), aircraft crashes (McCormack et al, 1999), and terrorist bombings (Holzer et al, 1996;Koper et al, 1999).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Empirical Scaling Laws for Truck Bomb Explosions Based on Seismic and Acoustic Data

Koper

Wallace

Reinke

et al. 2002

Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America

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We analyze seismic and acoustic data from a series of controlled truck bomb explosions to develop scaling laws and functional relations between charge size and various waveform properties. The explosions had yields of 3-12 ‫ן‬ 10 3 kg trinitrotoluene (TNT), and the receivers were placed at distances of 1-16 km, so the data mimic the data previously recorded from actual terrorist truck bombings. We examine four airblast properties (peak overpressure, impulse per unit area, pulse duration, and average shock velocity) and three seismic properties (peak displacement of P wave, low-frequency asymptote of displacement spectrum, and the corner frequency of displacement spectrum) as potential yield estimators. Impulse per unit area and pulse duration observations prove to be the most robust yield indicators; however, peak overpressure, peak displacement, and low-frequency spectral asymptote have significant utility as well. The acoustic scaling laws are more portable than the seismic scaling laws because regional differences in atmospheric structure can be well described by pressure and temperature observations, while regional differences in geologic structure are dependent on a large number of less accessible parameters. We apply the scaling laws developed here to seismic waveforms of the 1998 Nairobi bombing and find a yield of 2.0-6.0 ‫ן‬ 10 3 kg TNT. This value is consistent with but more precise than a previous estimate made via a time domain waveform inversion. Additional testing indicates that our functional relations are likely applicable to surface chemical explosions in general and not limited solely to truck bombs.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Empirical Scaling Laws for Truck Bomb Explosions Based on Seismic and Acoustic Data

Koper

Wallace

Reinke

et al. 2002

Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America

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“…The projection used in the source-type plot is designed so as to make the parameter variance linear for the moment tensor elements. The Crandall Canyon Mine event plots very near the point for a theoretical closing crack mechanism or anti-crack in a Poisson solid, which represents the process of collapse of an underground cavity (Pechmann et al, 1995;Bowers and Walter, 2002). The Tremonton event plots near the origin, which is consistent with a DC tectonic event.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 61%

“…For example the collapse of an approximately two square kilometer area of the Solvay trona mine in Wyoming on February 3, 1995 generated an M L 5.2 seismic event. Intermediate surface waves and short period first motion data were nicely fit using a closing tensile crack moment tensor, and were inconsistent with earthquake DC mechanisms (Pechmann et al, 1995). This 1995 event and a subsequent collapse event in 2000 are the green colored reference points near the closing (negative) crack location in Figure 7.…”

Section: Source Decompositionmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…However, the pillar material will fracture and rubblize in the collapse (called the "swell"), so the actual closure distance will be less. For example in the February 3,1995 Wyoming mine collapse, which occurred in an approximately 60% extraction room and pillar section of a trona mine, the average closure distance determined from both the seismic moment and the surface subsidence was about 0.6 m (Pechmann et al, 1995). This distance was between one fourth and one fifth of the original pillar height of 2.8m.…”

Section: Source Decompositionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Previous work modeling intermediate period (10-50s) seismic waveforms has shown the sudden collapse of underground cavities is well modeled using a vertically closing crack model (e.g., Pechmann et al, 1995;Bowers and Walter, 2002). For example the collapse of an approximately two square kilometer area of the Solvay trona mine in Wyoming on February 3, 1995 generated an M L 5.2 seismic event.…”

Section: Source Decompositionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Source Characterization of the 6 August 2007 Crandall Canyon Mine Seismic Event in Central Utah

Ford¹,

Dreger²,

Walter³

2008

Seismological Research Letters

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SUMMARYOn August 6, 2007 a local magnitude 3.9 seismic event occurred at 08:48:40 UTC in central Utah. The epicenter is within the boundaries of the Crandall Canyon coal mine (c.f. Pechmann et al., this volume). We performed a moment tensor analysis with complete, three-component seismic recordings from stations operated by the USGS, the University of Utah, and EarthScope. The analysis method inverts the seismic records to retrieve the full seismic moment tensor, which allows for interpretation of both shearing (e.g., earthquakes) and volume-changing (e.g., explosions and collapses) seismic events. The results show that most of the recorded seismic wave energy is consistent with an underground collapse in the mine. We contrast the waveforms and moment tensor results of the Crandall Canyon Mine seismic event to a similar sized tectonic earthquake about 200 km away near Tremonton, Utah, that occurred on September 1, 2007. Our study does not address the actual cause of the mine collapse.

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Changes in mining‐induced seismicity before and after the 2007 Crandall Canyon Mine collapse

et al. 2014

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On 6 August 2007, the Crandall Canyon Mine in central Utah experienced a major collapse that was recorded as an M w 4.1 seismic event. Application of waveform cross-correlation detection techniques to data recorded at permanent seismic stations located within~30 km of the mine has resulted in the discovery of 1494 previously unknown microseismic events related to the collapse. These events occurred between 26 July 2007 and 19 August 2007 and were detected with a magnitude threshold of completeness of 0.0, about 1.6 magnitude units smaller than the threshold associated with conventional techniques. Relative locations for the events were determined using a double-difference approach that incorporated absolute and differential arrival times. Absolute locations were determined using ground-truth reported in mine logbooks. Lineations apparent in the newly detected events have strikes similar to those of known vertical joints in the mine region, which may have played a role in the collapse. Prior to the collapse, seismicity occurred mostly in close proximity to active mining, though several distinct seismogenic hot spots within the mine were also apparent. In the 48 h before the collapse, changes in b value and event locations were observed. The collapse appears to have occurred when the migrating seismicity associated with direct mining activity intersected one of the areas identified as a seismic hot spot. Following the collapse, b values decreased and seismicity clustered farther to the east.

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The February 3, 1995, ML 5.1 Seismic Event in the Trona Mining District of Southwestern Wyoming

Cited by 52 publications

References 11 publications

Empirical Scaling Laws for Truck Bomb Explosions Based on Seismic and Acoustic Data

Empirical Scaling Laws for Truck Bomb Explosions Based on Seismic and Acoustic Data

Source Characterization of the 6 August 2007 Crandall Canyon Mine Seismic Event in Central Utah

Changes in mining‐induced seismicity before and after the 2007 Crandall Canyon Mine collapse

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