| NSF Org: |
EAR Division Of Earth Sciences |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | October 24, 2016 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | October 24, 2016 |
| Award Number: | 1664219 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Luciana Astiz
lastiz@nsf.gov (703)292-4705 EAR Division Of Earth Sciences GEO Directorate for Geosciences |
| Start Date: | November 1, 2016 |
| End Date: | October 31, 2017 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $8,781.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $8,781.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
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| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
401 WHITEHURST HALL STILLWATER OK US 74078-1031 (405)744-9995 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
105 Noble Research Center Stillwater OK US 74078-0001 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): |
Geophysics, DEEP EARTH PROCESSES SECTION |
| Primary Program Source: |
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| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.050 |
ABSTRACT
Induced earthquakes, or seismicity caused by human activity such as wastewater injection or secondary oil recovery, have been increasing in the midwestern United States since 2009. The state of Oklahoma has become known as "the new earthquake capital", with earthquake rates of M>3 exceeding those of California in the last few years. The 3 September 2016 Mw5.8 Pawnee, Oklahoma earthquake occurred within the region of induced seismicity, near wastewater disposal wells, and was the largest earthquake ever recorded within the state. The earthquake occurred five years after the second largest earthquake, the similarly sized Mw5.7 November 2011 Prague earthquake. Near Pawnee, local residents reported strong ground-shaking, damage to houses, cracks on the ground, and concerns about safety. Students from Cornell University and Colombia University, in collaboration with local universities including the University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma State University, and University of Tulsa, actively participated in the rapid deployment of 25 seismic stations around the epicentral region. Students of the institutions involved have been actively involved in learning about sensors, network designs, and earthquake physics.
The main fault the ruptured during the Pawnee event was an unmapped fault intersecting mapped Labette Fault, which has hosted a significant number of aftershocks include the largest aftershock (M3.9). The aftershock sequence and related seismic activity in the region that has been recorded since the rapid (within 2 days) deployment of seismic instrumentation will help study aftershocks and the likely triggered seismicity on the regional fault systems. In the coming weeks, we will deploy an additional 20 short-period stations that will record data for 12 months. This combined network will provide information on fault structure, aftershock decay, duration, and interaction with injection rate variations. The data will help to understand the characteristics of faults that host large damaging earthquakes, and will help to assess earthquake hazards in Oklahoma and the midcontinent. The broader impact of this rapid deployment will help understand the regional tectonic framework in northern Oklahoma and may elucidate the relationship between this recent seismic activity with the fluid injection activities in the region.
PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
Oklahoma State University (OSU, PI Priyank Jaiswal and graduate assistant Tim Sickbert) began fieldwork on Sunday 2016 September 4 in response to the September 3 Mw 5.8 Pawnee earthquake in cooperation with Cornell University (Katie Keranen), University of Oklahoma (Xiaowei Chen ), and Lamont-Doherty/Columbia University (Heather Savage ). In addition to deploying three of OSU's broadband seismometers (Güralp CMG-6TDs 0.01-33 s), OSU assisted in siting additional stations as part of the larger research effort.
Subsequent to the initial deployment, OSU assisted with initial landowner contacts and siting for a magnetotelluric survey led by Woods Hole (Rob Evans), serviced OSU's seismic stations, and provided rapid response when, for example, a landowner mowing a ditch risked starting a field fire when he hit a few nodes of a dense network.
OSU serviced their seismic stations about one week after the initial deployment and provided the data to both Cornell (Keranen) and OU (Chen) for immediate analysis, and repeated the effort in October, then again in April 2017 when the instruments were retrieved from the field.
In addition to sharing data collected from the stations deployed in response to the Mw 5.8 Pawnee event, OSU has shared data from its local network in the Payne County area collected earlier in 2016 to augment data from other networks for analysis of events leading up to the main shock.
OSU has registered a temporary network code (4H) with the Incorporated Research Institutes for Seismology (IRIS) where OSU will deposit all of its raw waveform data, along with instrument locations and instrument response data for public access.
OSU initiated its earthquake seismology research program in 2014 in response to the dramatic increase in the earthquake rate in Oklahoma and surrounding states that became significant and remarkable in about 2009. OSU purchased and deployed ten broadband seismic instruments (Güralp CMG-6TDs 0.01-33 s) in 2014 and collected data on all or most of them through early 2017. OSU's instruments do not easily support telemetry, so they do not provide real-time--or even near-real-time--access to their data. Today, the OGS, USGS, and other organizations have deployed a sufficient number of seismic stations with telemetry to adequately monitor seismicity in central and northern Oklahoma.
OSU removed their three seismic stations from the area of the Pawnee earthquake in April 2017, and most of their remaining stations in the greater Payne County area by August. OSU continues to operate two stations (A002 and A007). The data from all stations will be provided to the IRIS data management center (DMC) for free public access. We currently have one station operating in the area: A002, 36.2745, -96.9543.
Last Modified: 03/15/2018
Modified by: Priyank Jaiswal
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