Induced seismicity during the 2012 Newberry EGS stimulation: Assessment of two advanced earthquake detection techniques at an EGS site

To improve the microearthquake detection capability during the 2012 Newberry enhanced geothermal system (EGS) demonstration, we applied two advanced earthquake detection algorithms to the continuous seismic data. These techniques have the power to detect microearthquakes within the seismic noise that would otherwise be missed using traditional techniques. We compare the efficacy of a matched field processing algorithm with a multi-channel waveform correlation algorithm. Both methods identified between 60%–80% more events, with each slightly outperforming the other in different seismic noise contexts. Incorporating either template-matching technique into a seismic processing routine could therefore effectively increase the sensitivity of the seismic network without changes to the existing hardware. Additionally, lowering the magnitude of completeness would significantly add to the number of events that could subsequently inform future decision making at the reservoir level.