The 1992 Basin & Range Province GPS survey; 3, Data processing and results
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Geology topics
G.R. Foulger
Publications and source records attributed to G.R. Foulger.
Three dimensional images of geothermal systems: local earthquake P-wave velocity tomography at the Hengill and Krafla geothermal areas, Iceland, and The Geysers, California
Local earthquake tomography - the use of earthquake signals to form a 3-dimensional structural image - is now a mature geophysical analysis method, particularly suited to the study of geothermal reservoirs, which are often seismically active and severely laterally inhomogeneous. Studies have been conducted of the Hengill (Iceland), Krafla (Iceland) and The Geysers (California) geothermal areas. All three systems are exploited for electricity and/or heat production, and all are highly seismically active. Tomographic studies of volumes a few km in dimension were conducted for each area using the method of Thurber (1983).
Conference Paper↗
Non-shear focal mechanisms of earthquakes at The Geysers, California and Hengill, Iceland, geothermal areas
Several thousand earthquakes were recorded in each area. We report an initial investigation of the focal mechanisms based on P-wave polarities. Distortion by complicated three-dimensional crustal structure was minimized using tomographically derived three-dimensional crustal models. Events with explosive and implosive source mechanisms, suggesting cavity opening and collapse, have been tentatively identified at The Geysers. The new data show that some of these events do not fit the model of tensile cracking accompanied by isotropic pore pressure decreases that was suggested in earlier studies, but that they may instead involve combination of explosive and shear processes. However, the confirmation of earthquakes dominated by explosive components supports the model that the event are caused by crack opening induced by thermal contraction of the heat source.
Conference Paper↗
Post-rifting stress relaxation at the divergent plate boundary in northeast Iceland
Interaction of the elastic lithosphere with the underlying anelastic asthenosphere causes strain to propagate along the Earth's surface in a diffusion-like manner following tectonism at plate boundaries. This process transfers stress between adjacent tectonic segments and influences the temporal tectonic pattern along a plate boundary. Observations of such strain transients have been rare, and have hitherto been confined to strike-slip and underthrusting plate boundaries 1 . Here we report the observation of a strain transient at the divergent (spreading) plate boundary in Iceland. A Global Positioning System survey undertaken a decade after an episode of dyke intrusion accompanying several metres of crustal spreading reveals a spatially varying strain field with the expected diffusion-pulse shape and an amplitude three times greater than the 5.7 cm that would be expected from the average spreading rate 2 . A simple one-dimensional model with a thin elastic layer overlying a viscous layer fits the data well and yields a stress diffusivity of 1.1 á±0.3 m 2 s −1 . Combined with struc-tural information from magnetotelluric measurements, this implies a viscosity of 0.3−2 × 10 19 Pa s—a value comparable to that derived for Iceland from post-glacial rebound 23 , but low compared with estimates for mantle viscosity obtained elsewhere 3 .
Nature↗