influence of pore pressure on the event size distribution of induced earthquakes 1 during an enhanced geothermal system egs experiment fluid is injected at high pressure into crystalline rock to enhance its permeability and thus create a reservoir from which geothermal heat can be extracted the fracturing of the basement caused by these high pore pressures is associated with microseismicity however the relationship between the magnitudes of these induced seismic events and the applied fluid injection rates and thus pore pressure is unknown here we show how pore pressure can be linked to the seismic frequency magnitude distribution described by its slope theb value we evaluate the dataset of an egs in basel switzerland and compare the observed event size distribution with the outcome of a minimalistic model of pore pressure evolution that relates event sizes to the differential stress d we observe that the decrease of b values with increasing distance of the injection point is likely caused by a decrease in pore pressure this leads to an increase of the probability of a large magnitude event with distance and time

stress field constraints on intraplate seismicity in eastern north america focal mechanisms of 32 north american midplate earthquakes mo 3 8 6 5 were evaluated to determine if slip is compatible with a broad scale regional stress field derived from plate driving forces and if so under what conditions stress regime pore pressure and frictional coefficient using independent information on in situ stress orientations from well bore breakout and hydraulic fracturing data and assuming that the regional principal stresses are in approximately horizontal and vertical planes 10o the constraint that the slip vector represents the direction of maximum resolved shear stress on the fault plane was used to calculate relative stress magnitudes defined by the parameterb s2 s3 s s3 from the fault stress geometry as long as the focal mechanism has a component of oblique slip i e the b axis does not coincide with the intermediate principal stress direction this calculation identifies which of the two nodal planes is a geometrically possible slip plane gephart 1985 slip in a majority of the earthquakes 25 of 32 was found to be geometrically compatible with reactivation of favorably oriented preexisting fault planes in response to the broad scale uniform regional stress field slip in five events was clearly inconsistent with the regional stress field and appears to require a localized stress anomaly to explain the seismicity significantly all five of these events occurred prior to 1970 when many regional networks were installed and their focal mechanisms are inconsistent with more recent solutions of nearby smaller events the frictional likelihood of the geometrically possible slip on the selected fault planes was evaluated in the context of conventional frictional faulting theory the ratio of shear to normal stress on the fault planes at hypocentral depth was calculated relative to an assumed regional stress field regional stress magnitudes were determined from 1 s s3 ratios based on the frictional strength of optimally oriented faults the basis for the linear brittle portion of lithospheric strength profiles 2 the computed relative stress magnitude b values and 3 a vertical principal stress assumed equal to the lithostat two end member possibilities were examined to explain the observed slip in these less than optimally oriented fault planes first the frictional coefficient was held constant on all faults hydrostatic pore pressure was assumed regionally and the fault zone pore pressure was determined since pore pressure is a measurable quantity with real limits in the crust p0 s3 this end member case was used to determine which of the geometrically possible slip planes were frictionally likely slip planes alternately pore pressure was fixed at hydrostatic everywhere and the required relative lowered frictional coefficient of the fault zone was computed slip in 23 of the 25 geometrically compatible earthquakes was determined to also be frictionally likely in response to an approximately horizontal and vertical regional stress field derived from plate driving forces whose magnitudes are constrained by the frictional strength of optimally oriented faults assuming hydrostatic pore pressure regionally the conditions for slip on these 23 relatively well oriented earthquake faults were determined relative to this regional crustal strength model and require only moderate increases in pore pressure between about 0 4 0 8 of lithostatic hydrostatic is about 0 37 of lithostatic or alternately moderate lowering 50 of the frictional coefficient on the faults which slipped superlithostatic pore pressures are not required focal mechanisms for the two other earthquakes with slip vectors geometrically consistent with the regional stress field however did require pore pressures far exceeding the least principal stress or extremely low coefficients of friction these events may reflect either local stress rotations undetected with current sampling or poorly constrained focal mechanisms the analysis also confirmed a roughly north to south contrast in stress regime between the central eastern united states and southeastern canada previously inferred from a contrast in focal mecha nisms between the two areas most central eastern united states earthquakes occur in response to a strike slip stress regime whereas the southeastern canadian events require a thrust faulting stress regime this contrast in stress regime with a constant maximum horizontal stress orientation determined by far field plate driving forces requires a systematic lateral variation in relative stress magnitudes superposition of stresses due to simple flexural models of glacial rebound stresses are of the correct sense to explain the observed lateral variation but maximum computed rebound related stress magnitude changes are quite small about 10 mpa and do not appear large enough to account for the stress regime change if commonly assumed stress magnitudes determined from frictional strength apply to the crust at seismogenic depths

distinguishing induced seismicity from natural seismicity in ohio demonstrating the utility of waveform template matching this study investigated the utility of multistation waveform cross correlation to help discern induced seismicity template matching was applied to all ohio earthquakes cataloged since the arrival of nearby earthscope ta stations in late 2010 earthquakes that were within 5 km of fluid injection activities in regions that lacked previously documented seismicity were found to be swarmy moreover the larger number of events produced by template matching for these swarmy sequences made it easier to establish more detailed temporal and spatial relationships between the seismicity and fluid injection activities which is typically required for an earthquake to be considered induced study results detected three previously documented induced sequences youngstown poland township and harrison county and provided evidence that suggests two additional cases of induced seismicity belmont guernsey county and washington county evidence for these cases suggested that unusual swarm like behaviors in regions that lack previously documented seismicity can be used to help distinguish induced seismicity complementing the traditional identification of an anthropogenic source spatially and temporally correlated with the seismicity in support of this finding we identified 17 additional cataloged earthquakes in regions of previously documented seismicity and away from disposal wells or hydraulic fracturing that returned very few template matches the lack of swarminess helps to indicate that these events are most likely naturally occurring

high rate injection is associated with the increase in u s mid continent seismicity an unprecedented increase in earthquakes in the u s mid continent began in 2009 many of these earthquakes have been documented as induced by wastewater injection we examine the relationship between wastewater injection and u s mid continent seismicity using a newly assembled injection well database for the central and eastern united states we find that the entire increase in earthquake rate is associated with fluid injection wells high rate injection wells 300 000 barrels per month are much more likely to be associated with earthquakes than lower rate wells at the scale of our study a well s cumulative injected volume monthly wellhead pressure depth and proximity to crystalline basement do not strongly correlate with earthquake association managing injection rates may be a useful tool to minimize the likelihood of induced earthquakes

time dependent deformation of shale gas reservoir rocks and its long term effect on the in situ state of stress abstract laboratory testing of shale gas reservoir rocks reveal varying amounts of time dependent viscous deformation in response to applied differential stress the time dependent deformation is an inherent property of the dry rock as it occurs in the absence of pore fluid the contribution of the time dependent deformation is generally larger for rocks with more clay and organic content the time dependent behavior can be modeled as a power law function of time its magnitude is approximately linear with the magnitude of the applied differential stress and nearly insensitive to the confining pressure by applying linear viscoelastic theory and using laboratory constrained constitutive parameters we evaluated the effect of the time dependent deformation in modifying the in situ differential stress over time modeling suggests that a significant proportion of a differential stress change would be relaxed over time scales on the order of days because of this short time scale the composition of the rock as it influences the time dependent behavior may influence the in situ differential stress magnitudes stronger than the formation s geological loading history for these reservoirs

earthquakes induced by water injection at 3 km depth within the rongchang gas field chongqing china 1 unwanted water amounting more than 1 million m 3 has been injected intermittently at a pumping pressure of 2 1 2 9 mpa over hydrostatic at 2 6 2 9 km depth within the rongchang gas field western chongqing china since july 1988 the injections have induced more than 32 000 surface recorded earthquakes including 2 of m l 5 14 of m l 4 and more than 100 of m l 3 up until the end of 2006 we examined the epidemic type aftershock sequence etas model and the temporal evolution of several statistics of the earthquake sequence the random component in the etas model can be considered as an indicator of fluid driven activity while the rate of omori law type aftershocks indicates stress triggering of the preceding earthquakes we observed three distinct seismic activity phases that were coincident with different injection periods phase i corresponds to initial injections with low injection rate long time interval and shows a vast majority of omori type events and only 8 externally forced activity phase ii corresponds to a period of high injection rates and shows intense earthquake activity characterized by a high percentage 45 of fluid driven earthquakes phase iii demonstrates decreasing seismicity as a result of a lowering in the injection rate more than 70 of earthquakes occurred randomly over time indicating the dominance of external triggering the physical mechanism that induced the rongchang earthquake sequence was a change in coulomb s failure stress caused by pore pressure diffusion and transformed from seismic slip of preceding earthquakes a pressure increase of 2 1 2 9 mpa at the injection well is more than sufficient to induce failure within the local formations

variations in the frequency magnitude distribution with depth in two volcanic areas mount st helens washington and mt spurr alaska the frequency magnitude distribution of earthquakes characterized using the b value is examined as a function of space beneath mount st helens 1988 1996 and mt spurr 1991 1995 at mount st helens two volumes of anomalously high b b 1 3 can be observed at depths of 2 6 3 6 km below the crater floor and below 6 4 km these anomalies coincide with 1 the depth of vesiculation of ascending magma and 2 the suggested location of a magma chamber at mount st helens study of mt spurr reveals an area of high b value b 1 3 at a depth of about 2 3 4 5 km below the crater floor of the active vent crater peak we propose that the higher material heterogeneity in the vicinity of a magma chamber or conduit due to vesiculation of the ascending magma is the main cause of the increased b value at shallow depths alternatively interaction of magma with groundwater may have increased pore pressure and lowered the effective stress the deeper anomaly at mount st helens is likely caused by high thermal stress gradients in the vicinity of the magma chamber our results indicate that detailed mapping of the frequency magnitude distribution can be used as a tool to trace vesiculation and locate active magma chambers

modeling of continental weathering under high co2 atmospheres during precambrian times batch experiments were conducted to simulate abiotic weathering of the continental crust under high co2 atmospheric conditions during precambrian times i e corresponding to the general archaean conditions as well as to the immediate aftermath of the neoproterozoic snowball earth ice ages three types of rock basalt granodiorite and tonalite representative of the archaean to proterozoic continental crust were reacted in the form of powders for 1 year at 40 c with pure water under various water rock ratios in oxic and anoxic atmospheres containing 10 co2 that is under conditions assumed to characterize the greenhouse effect which prevailed at that time chemical and mineralogical data collected during the course of the experiments reflect alteration phenomena occurring in two steps 1 rapid leaching of the fresh surfaces probably related to the proton donor capacity of the co2 and 2 a steady state reaction under near neutral conditions these observed dissolution rates can be satisfactorily modeled by kinetic data available in the literature using a 1 d weathering model reproducing the two steps we evaluate the atmospheric co2 consumption rate at the snowball earth aftermath focusing on the relative contribution of surface leaching versus steady state reaction the results show that the process is dominated by surface exchange

magnitudes of induced earthquakes and geometric scales of fluid stimulated rock volumes sometimes rock stimulations by fluid injections into geothermal boreholes are able to trigger perceptible or even potentially damaging earthquakes this does not seem to be the case for hydraulic fracturing of hydrocarbon reservoirs reasons for such a difference and factors defining magnitudes of induced earthquakes triggered tectonicly as well as induced artificially remain unclear we analyzed microseismic data obtained by fluid stimulations at different geothermal and hydrocarbon sites this analysis indicates that a rupture corresponding to a fluid induced earthquake seems to be only probable along a surface located mainly inside a stimulated rock volume we approximated the stimulated volume by an ellipsoid and compared the statistics of induced events with the statistics of randomly distributed thin flat disks modeling rupture surfaces we found that one of the main factors limiting the probability to induce a large magnitude event is the minimum principal axis of a fluid stimulated rock volume

maturity of nearby faults influences seismic hazard from hydraulic fracturing understanding the causes of human induced earthquakes is paramount to reducing societal risk we investigated five cases of seismicity associated with hydraulic fracturing hf in ohio since 2013 that because of their isolation from other injection activities provide an ideal setting for studying the relations between high pressure injection and earthquakes our analysis revealed two distinct groups i deeper earthquakes in the precambrian basement with larger magnitudes m 2 b values 1 5 and few post shut in earthquakes based on geologic history laboratory experiments and fault modeling we interpret the deep seismicity as slip on more mature faults in older crystalline rocks and the shallow seismicity as slip on immature faults in younger sedimentary rocks this suggests that hf inducing deeper seismicity may pose higher seismic hazards wells inducing deeper seismicity produced more water than wells with shallow seismicity indicating more extensive hydrologic connections outside the target formation consistent with pore pressure diffusion influencing seismicity however for both groups the 2 to 3 h between onset of hf and seismicity is too short for typical fluid pressure diffusion rates across distances of 1 km and argues for poroelastic stress transfer also having a primary influence on seismicity

seismic characteristics and identification of negative flower structures positive flower structures and positive structural inversion negative and positive flower structures and positive inverted structures imply specific modes of formation and their distinctive characteristics make them important criteria for the identification of certain structural styles a negative flower structure from the andaman sea consists of a shallow synform bounded by upward spreading strands of a wrench fault that have mostly normal separations paralleling monoclines and oblique en echelon normal faults flank the divergent wrench fault a positive flower structure from the ardmore basin oklahoma consists of a shallow antiform displaced by the upward diverging strands of a wrench fault that have mostly reverse separations en echelon folds are present on either side of this convergent wrench fault flower structures may resemble extensional or contractional fault blocks on individual seismic profiles flower structures are identified by their unique internal fault and fold architecture by their association with a straight and throughgoing zone of deformation and by their lack of a consistent sense of separation or regional upthrown side positive structural inversion at the rambutan oil field south sumatra basin has formed a shallow anticlinorium and has partly uplifted the underlying graben deeper fault segments bounding the graben have retained their normal fault profiles but at shallow levels some of these faults have reverse separations similar changes of separation with depth may be produced by strike slip but sets of faults with listric profiles and nearby blocklike trend patterns identify the inversion as a dip slip event where correlation of reflections is uncertain or deep control is unobtainable positive inverted structures may also resemble contrational fault blocks detached normal fault assemblages and certain negative inverted structures

induced seismicity associated with fluid injection into a deep well in youngstown ohio 1 over 109 small earthquakes mw 0 4 3 9 were detected during january 2011 to february 2012 in the youngstown ohio area where there were no known earthquakes in the past these shocks were close to a deep fluid injection well the 14 month seismicity included six felt earthquakes and culminated with a mw 3 9 shock on 31 december 2011 among the 109 shocks 12 events greater than mw 1 8 were detected by regional network and accurately relocated whereas 97 small earthquakes 0 4 mw 1 8 were detected by the waveform correlation detector accurately located earthquakes were along a subsurface fault trending ene wsw consistent with the focal mechanism of the main shock and occurred at depths 3 5 4 0 km in the precambrian basement we conclude that the recent earthquakes in youngstown ohio were induced by the fluid injection at a deep injection well due to increased pore pressure along the preexisting subsurface faults located close to the wellbore we found that the seismicity initiated at the eastern end of the subsurface fault close to the injection point and migrated toward the west away from the wellbore indicating that the expanding high fluid pressure front increased the pore pressure along its path and progressively triggered the earthquakes we observe that several periods of quiescence of seismicity follow the minima in injection volumes and pressure which may indicate that the earthquakes were directly caused by the pressure buildup and stopped when pressure dropped

variations in earthquake size distribution across different stress regimes the earthquake size distribution follows in most instances a power law1 2 with the slope of this power law the b value commonly used to describe the relative occurrence of large and small events a high b value indicates a larger proportion of small earthquakes and vice versa statistically significant variations of b values have been measured in laboratory experiments mines and various tectonic regimes such as subducting slabs near magma chambers along fault zones and in aftershock zones3 however it has remained uncertain whether these differences are due to differing stress regimes as it was questionable that samples in small volumes such as in laboratory specimens mines and the shallow earth s crust are representative of earthquakes in general given the lack of physical understanding of these differences the observation that b values approach the constant 1 if large volumes are sampled4 was interpreted to indicate that b 1 is a universal constant for earthquakes in general5 here we show that the b value varies systematically for different styles of faulting we find that normal faulting events have the highest b values thrust events the lowest and strike slip events intermediate values given that thrust faults tend to be under higher stress than normal faults we infer that the b value acts as a stress meter that depends inversely on differential stress

optimizing multi station earthquake template matching through re examination of the youngstown ohio sequence abstract a series of earthquakes in 2011 near youngstown oh has been a focal point for discussions of seismicity induced by a nearby wastewater disposal well utilizing an efficient waveform template matching procedure the optimal correlation template to study the youngstown sequence was identified by varying parameters such as the stations utilized frequency passband and seismogram length a catalog composed of 566 events was identified between january 2011 and february 2014 double difference relocation refines seismicity to a 800 m linear streak from the northstar 1 injection well to the wsw along the same strike as the fault plane of the largest event calculated gutenberg richter b values are consistent with trends observed in other regions with seismicity induced by fluid injection

an earthquake like magnitude frequency distribution of slow slip in northern cascadia 1 major episodic tremor and slip ets events with mw 6 4 to 6 7 repeat every 15 2 months within the cascadia subduction zone under the olympic peninsula although these major ets events are observed to release strain smaller tremor swarms without detectable geodetic deformation are more frequent an automatic search from 2006 2009 reveals 20 000 five minute windows containing tremor which cluster in space and time into 96 tremor swarms the 93 inter ets tremor swarms account for 45 of the total duration of tremor detection during the last three ets cycles the number of tremor swarms n exceeding duration follow a power law distribution n 0 66 if duration is proportional to moment release the slip inferred from these swarms follows a standard gutenberg richter logarithmic frequency magnitude relation with the major ets events and smaller inter ets swarms lying on the same trend this relationship implies that 1 inter ets slip is fundamentally similar to the major events just smaller and more frequent and 2 despite fundamental differences in moment duration scaling the slow slip magnitude frequency distribution is the same as normal earthquakes with a b value of 1

injection induced seismicity poroelastic and earthquake nucleation effects the standard model of injection induced seismicity considers changes in coulomb strength due solely to changes in pore pressure we consider two additional effects full poroelastic coupling of stress and pore pressure and time dependent earthquake nucleation we model stress and pore pressure due to specified injection rate in a homogeneous poroelastic medium stress and pore pressure are used to compute seismicity rate through the dieterich 1994 model for constant injection rate the time to reach a critical seismicity rate scales with t r2 cfc where r is distance from the injector c is hydraulic diffusivity and fc is a factor that depends on mechanical properties and weakly on r the seismicity rate decays following a peak consistent with some observations during injection poroelastic coupling may increase or decrease the seismicity rate depending on the orientation of the faults relative to the injector if injection induced stresses inhibit slip abrupt shut in can lead to locally sharp increases in seismicity rate tapering the flux mitigates this effect the maximum magnitude event has been observed to occur postinjection we suggest the seismicity rate at a given magnitude depends on the nucleation rate the size distribution of fault segments and if the background shear stress is low the time varying volume of perturbed crust this leads to a rollover in frequency magnitude distribution for larger events with a corner that increases with time larger events are absent at short times but approach the background frequency with time larger events occurring post shut in are thus not unexpected

universality of the seismic moment frequency relation we analyze the seismic moment frequency relation in various depth ranges and for different seismic regions using flinn engdahl s regionalization of global seismicity three earthquake lists of centroid moment tensor data have been used the harvard catalog the usgs catalog and the huang et al 1997 catalog of deep earthquakes the results confirm the universality of the values and the maximum moment for shallow earthquakes in continental regions as well as at and near continental boundaries moreover we show that although fluctuations in earthquake size distribution increase with depth the values for earthquakes in the depth range of 0 500 km exhibit no statistically significant regional variations the regional variations are significant only for deep events near the 660 km boundary for declustered shallow earthquake catalogs and deeper events we show that the worldwide values have the same value of 0 60 0 02 this finding suggests that the value is a universal constant we investigate the statistical correlations between the numbers of seismic events in different depth ranges and the correlation of the tectonic deformation rate and seismic activity the number of earthquakes above a certain threshold level per year the high level of these correlations suggests that seismic activity indicates tectonic deformation rate in subduction zones combined with the universality of the value this finding implies little if any variation in maximum earthquake seismic moment among various subduction zones if we assume that earthquakes of maximum size are similar in different depth ranges and the seismic efficiency coefficient is close to 100 for shallow seismicity then we can estimate for deeper earthquakes for intermediate earthquakes 5 and 1 for deep events these results may lead to new theoretical understanding of the earthquake process and better estimates of seismic hazard

volcanic soils of france abstract in france andic soils mainly occur in the massif central andic and other volcanic soils 5000 km 2 and on the vosges and the morvan hercynian massifs in the massif central silandosols on recent pyroclastics are distinguished from aluandosols on older mio pliocene lavas after a brief introduction to the parent materials soil characterisation survey genesis properties and land use are reviewed in two periods from 1960 to 1979 and from 1980 to 2000 soil distribution is related schematically to topo climatic sequences comparing recent pyroclastics to older volcanic lavas an udic or perudic soil moisture regime is the primary factor in andosol genesis in france silandosols occur only on recent pyroclastics and aluandosols on old lavas after reworking by glacial erosion from a mantle of loose and pre weathered materials the anthropic impacts include accelerated erosion and changes in carbon content

non double couple mechanisms of microearthquakes induced by hydraulic fracturing 1 we have inverted polarity and amplitude information of representative microearthquakes to investigate source mechanisms of seismicity induced by hydraulic fracturing in the carthage cotton valley east texas gas field with vertical arrays of four and eight three component geophones in two monitoring wells respectively we were able to reliably determine source mechanisms of the strongest events with the best signal to noise ratio our analysis indicates predominantly non double couple source mechanisms with positive volumetric component consistent with opening cracks oriented close to expected hydraulic fracture orientation our observations suggest the induced events are directly the result of opening cracks by fluid injection in contrast to many previous studies where the seismicity is interpreted to be primarily shearing caused by pore pressure diffusion into the surrounding rock or associated with shear stresses created at the hydraulic fracture tip

felt seismicity associated with shale gas hydraulic fracturing the first documented example in europe we describe the origin of felt seismicity during the hydraulic fracturing of the carboniferous bowland shale at the preese hall 1 exploration well near blackpool in the uk during 2011 the seismicity resulted from the interaction of hydraulic fracturing and a fault the location of which was unknown at the time but has subsequently been located and does not intersect the well borehole waveform cross correlation is used to detect 50 events in the sequence a representative hypocenter and strike slip focal mechanism is calculated using the best recorded seismic event the hypocenter is calculated to lie 300 400 m east and 330 360 m below the injection point and shown to lie on a fault imaged using 3 d seismic at a depth of about 2930 m the 3 d survey shows that not only the event hypocenter but also the focal mechanism correlates strongly with a subsequently identifiable transpressional fault formed during the late carboniferous variscan basin inversion

depth dependence of earthquake frequency magnitude distributions in california implications for rupture initiation statistics of earthquakes in california show linear frequency magnitude relationships in the range of m2 0 to m5 5 for various data sets assuming gutenberg richter distributions there is a systematic decrease in b value with increasing depth of earthquakes we find consistent results for various data sets from northern and southern california that both include and exclude the larger aftershock sequences we suggest that at shallow depth 0 to 6 km conditions with more heterogeneous material properties and lower lithospheric stress prevail rupture initiations are more likely to stop before growing into large earthquakes producing relatively more smaller earthquakes and consequently higher b values these ideas help to explain the depth dependent observations of foreshocks in the western united states the higher occurrence rate of foreshocks preceding shallow earthquakes can be interpreted in terms of rupture initiations that are stopped before growing into the mainshock at greater depth 9 15 km any rupture initiation is more likely to continue growing into a larger event so there are fewer foreshocks if one assumes that frequency magnitude statistics can be used to estimate probabilities of a small rupture initiation growing into a larger earthquake then a small m2 rupture initiation at 9 to 12 km depth is 18 times more likely to grow into a m5 5 or larger event compared to the same small rupture initiation at 0 to 3 km

coping with earthquakes induced by fluid injection large areas of the united states long considered geologically stable with little or no detected seismicity have recently become seismically active the increase in earthquake activity began in the mid continent starting in 2001 1 and has continued to rise in 2014 the rate of occurrence of earthquakes with magnitudes m of 3 and greater in oklahoma exceeded that in california see the figure this elevated activity includes larger earthquakes several with m 5 that have caused significant damage 2 3 to a large extent the increasing rate of earthquakes in the mid continent is due to fluid injection activities used in modern energy production 1 4 5 we explore potential avenues for mitigating effects of induced seismicity although the united states is our focus here canada china the uk and others confront similar problems associated with oil and gas production whereas quakes induced by geothermal activities affect switzerland germany and others

temporal variation in the magnitude frequency distribution during the guy greenbrier earthquake sequence the recent increase in earthquake activity in the central u s has led to concerns about the hazard posed by induced earthquakes understanding earthquake phenomena and monitoring in all settings can be improved by the detection of small events however the catalog of induced earthquakes is incomplete for small events due to the sparse instrumentation this is particularly true in settings of low background seismicity like the central u s we apply single station template matching to detect small earthquakes during the guy greenbrier sequence in central arkansas and find over 100 times more earthquakes than are registered in the advanced national seismic system catalog between july 2010 and october 2011 a complete catalog over nearly 4 units of magnitude enables us to analyze the magnitude frequency distribution of induced earthquakes we find that earthquakes deviated from the gutenberg richter statistics during the operation of nearby injection wells but returned to gutenberg richter statistics after the wells were shut in