Induced Seismicity in Southeastern New Mexico
Justin L. RubinsteinSubmitted September 7, 2025, SCEC Contribution #14438, 2025 SCEC Annual Meeting Poster #TBD
Since 2015, the Permian Basin in southeastern New Mexico and western Texas has experienced a surge in seismicity. The earthquake rate has been so high that in 2022 the rate of M3+ earthquakes in the Permian exceeded California’s. While seismicity rate in the Permian Basin has declined slightly since 2022, the earthquake rate in the Permian is still comparable to California’s. Most of the seismicity lies within the Texas portion of the Basin, including the eight M5+ earthquakes that have occurred to date. While the seismicity rate in the New Mexico portion of the basin is lower than Texas, significant seismicity has been occurring the area, including two M4+ earthquakes. In response to the growing seismicity in southeastern New Mexico, the USGS, in collaboration with the New Mexico Bureau of Geology, deployed a 14-station seismic network in the region. With this network, we have detected and manually located over 1400 earthquakes, many of which lie in New Mexico. Machine learning methods have also been used to generate a catalog of earthquakes, increasing the number of events detected by an order of magnitude. Here we will present analysis of this seismicity, including a new velocity model, a fault map, and stress inversion.
Citation
Rubinstein, J. L. (2025, 09). Induced Seismicity in Southeastern New Mexico. Poster Presentation at 2025 SCEC Annual Meeting.
Related Projects & Working Groups
Seismology
