Exposed accretionary wedge
Outcrop of the accretionary wedge of the former Farallon subduction zone
Workgroups

Earthquake Processes

The Earthquake Processes group uses observational approaches from seismology, geological structural features, and modeling approaches. It studies what causes earthquakes to start, what happens during the fault rupture process, and what influences how destructive they may be.

It deals with questions such as, are similar sized earthquakes in different fault settings physically the same? How does fault strength influence when and where earthquakes occur? What is the role of crustal fluids in earthquake nucleation and fault slip speed? How do smaller, more frequent earthquakes relate to larger, less-frequent, more destructive ones? How do the seismic waves of earthquakes thousands of kilometers away trigger local earthquakes? Are earthquakes induced by fluid injection physically different from their tectonic counterparts?

Research and Teaching Staff

MSc Students

  • Henning Bergerman, BSc
  • Marco Dietl, BSc
  • Aileen Gotowik, BSc
  • Ricarda Wache, BSc

Accepted/in-Press
Onwuemeka, J., Y. Liu, R. M. Harrington, Crustal velocity variations and constraints on material properties in the Charlevoix Seismic Zone, eastern Canada, J. of Geophys. Res., accepted.

2021
Wang, B. , A. Verdecchia, H. Kao, R. M. Harrington, Y. Liu, and H. Yu (2021), A study on the largest hydraulic fracturing induced earthquake in Canada: Numerical modeling and triggering mechanism, Bull. of the Seismol. Soc. of Am., v. 111, n. 3, pp. 1392-1404. 

Verdecchia, A., E. S. Cochran, R. M. Harrington, Fluid-earthquake and earthquake-earthquake interactions in southern Kansas, USA, (2021), J. of Geophys. Res., v. 126, n. 3, e2020JB020384.

​Bocchini, G. M., P. Martínez-Garzón, R. M. Harrington, and M. Bohnhoff, Does deep non-volcanic tremor occur in the central-eastern Mediterranean basin? (2021), J. of Geophys. Res., v. 126, n. 1, 2020JB020448.

2020
Kemna, K. B., A. F. Pena-Castro, R. M. Harrington, E. S. Cochran, Using a large-n seismic array to explore the robustness of spectral estimations (2020), Geophys. Res. Lett., v. 47, n. 21, e2020GL089342.

Wang, B., R. M. Harrington, Y. Liu, H. Kao, H. Yu, A study on the largest hydraulic fracturing induced earthquake in Canada: Observations and stress drop estimation, Bull. of the Seismol. Soc. of Am., v. 110, n. 5, pp. 2283-2294. 
 
Yu, H. R. M. Harrington, H. Kao, Y. Liu, R. E. Abercrombie, B. Wang, Well proximity governing spatial variation of stress drop and seismic attenuation associated with hydraulic fracturing induced earthquakes (2020), J. of Geophys. Res,  
https://doi.org/10.1029/2020JB020103

Roth, M. P., A. Verdecchia, R. M. Harrington, Y. Liu, High-resolution imaging of hydraulic fracturing induced earthquake clusters in the Dawson-Septimus area, northeast British Columbia, Canada  (2020), Seismol. Res. Lett., https://doi.org/10.1785/0220200086.

​Pena-Castro, A. P., M. P. Roth, J. Onwuemeka, Y. Liu, R. M. Harrington, Y. Zhang, H. Kao, Stress chatter on a fracture network reactivated by hydraulic fracturing (2020), Geophys. Res. Lett.,  https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GL087254

Cochran, E. S., A. Wickham-Piotorwski, K. B. Kemna, R. M. Harrington, S. Dougherty, A. P. Pena-Castro, Minimal clustering of injection-induced earthquakes observed with a Large-N seismic array (2020), Bull. of the Seismol. Soc. of America, https://doi.org/10.1785/0120200101

Kirkpatrick, J. D., J. H. Edwards, A. Verdecchia, J. W. Kluesner, R. M. Harrington, E. A. Silver, Length scales of structural heterogeneity on a subduction interface (2020), Nature Geoscience.

  • Broadband/accelerometer Seismometer Pool (10 Nanometrics Trillium Compact 20-sec, 3 Nanometrics Cascadia seismometers, 10-3C, 3-6C Centaur data logger. 
Broadband station installation with data logger and battery power
Trillium Compact 20-sec broadband seismometer installation
  • GeoMax Zenith 15 GSM-UHF Net Rover (Campaign GPS stations): 3
  • EMLID REACH RS2 Multi-band RTK GNSS receiver
  • DJI Phantom 4 Pro Drone
  • Distributed Acoustic Sensor (DAS)
Erdbebenprozesse GPS - Drone
Campaign GPS station and drone used for photogrammetry studies. (Drone is part of the wider GMG equipment)

Prof. Rebecca Harrington (PhD) (Chair of Hydrogeomechanics)

Gebäude IA 4/127

Telephone: +49 (0)234-32-23 27 2

e-mail: rebecca.harrington "at" rub.de

 

Agnes Otto (Sekretariat)

Gebäude IA 4/137

Telefon: +49 (0)234-32-28 52 1

e-mail: office-hydrogeomechanik "at" rub.de