DISTRIBUTION ANALYSIS OF MICRO-EARTHQUAKES IN GEOTHERMAL AREAS BY USING COUPLED VELOCITY-HYPOCENTER AND DOUBLE DIFFERENCE METHODS
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.11113/jurnalteknologi.v88.18447Keywords:
Coupled velocity-hypocenter, double-difference relocation, geothermal, hypocenter determination, micro-earthquake (MEQ)Abstract
Accurate and unbiased determination of hypocenter locations remains a major challenge in microearthquake (MEQ) studies. The reliability of the determination process greatly contributes to the real-time monitoring of geothermal reservoir activities. Therefore, this study focuses on monitoring geothermal reservoirs through the spatial distribution of MEQ locations using inversion methods. The inversion methods applied in this research include the single hypocenter determination method, which is used to identify the initial locations of MEQs, and the Coupled Velocity-Hypocenter simultaneous inversion method, which is employed to derive a new 1D velocity model for the MEQ cluster area. In addition, the Double-Difference method is utilized to enhance the accuracy of MEQ hypocenter locations by considering coherence factors between hypocenters. The data processing workflow demonstrates that the 1D velocity model refined by incorporating station corrections within the MEQ cluster area significantly improves the accuracy of hypocenter locations in the geothermal zone. This improvement is evidenced by a reduction of the average RMS residual to 0.07 s, indicating that the relocated hypocenters are reliable and that the derived velocity structure effectively represents the subsurface and approximates the true seismic velocity distribution. Most relocated MEQs are concentrated around the injection and production well zones, with approximately 94.3% of events occurring between 0.5 and -1.5 km depth, corresponding to the active geothermal reservoir. These clusters delineate fracture zones characterized by intense fluid flow activity.
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