Obtaining Absolute Locations for Quarry Seismicity Using Remote Sensing Data

Guoqing Lin, Peter M. Shearer, & Yuri Fialko

Published April 2006, SCEC Contribution #914

We obtain true locations for 19 seismicity clusters in southern California by identifying quarries on remote sensing data. These clusters contain 16,574 events from the Southern California Seismic Network from 1984 to 2002, which are flagged as quarry blasts but without any ground truth location constraints. Using commercially available air photos and InSAR satellite radar topography data, we identify the likely sources of these events as quarries that are clearly visible within 1 to 2 km of the seismically determined locations. We then shift the clusters to align with the air photo images, obtaining an estimated absolute location accuracy of ~200 m for the cluster centroids.

Citation
Lin, G., Shearer, P. M., & Fialko, Y. (2006). Obtaining Absolute Locations for Quarry Seismicity Using Remote Sensing Data. Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, 96(2), 722-728.