Microearthquakes at Valles Caldera, New Mexico: Improved Detection and Location with Two Additional Caldera Stations

Abstract:

The Los Alamos Seismic Network (LASN) has operated for 43 years, providing data to locate more than 2,500 earthquakes in north-central New Mexico. Roughly 1-2 earthquakes are detected and located per month within about 150 km of Los Alamos, a total of over 900 from 1973 to present. LASN’s primary purpose is to monitor seismicity close to the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) for seismic hazards; monitoring seismicity associated with the nearby Valles Caldera is secondary. Until 2010 the network was focused on monitoring seismic hazards and comprised only 7 stations, all near LANL or in the nearby Jemez Mountains. Just one station—PER, installed in 1998—was close enough to Valles Caldera to be able to detect microearthquakes located in or near the caldera. An initial study of the data from station PER between 1998 and 2002 identified and located 13 events with magnitudes less than 0.5 using the single-station hodogram technique. Those events were all located south of the caldera within a few kilometers of PER. Recently, two new digital broadband stations were installed inside the caldera, one on a northeastern ring-fracture dome, station CDAB, and the other on a northwestern dome, station SAMT. Also, station PER was upgraded with digital broadband instrumentation. Thus, LASN now can detect and record microearthquakes as small as magnitude –1.5 near the caldera, and they can be located using multiple arrival times. Several recent events located near station SAMT on the caldera’s ring fracture are the first that have been seen in that area. Additional events were recorded (by all three stations) and located in the area south of the caldera where the earlier hodogram-only events were located. These new multi-station event recordings allow a more quantitative assessment of the uncertainties in the initial single-station hodogram locations. Each event is located using multiple arrival times as well as the hodogram method at as many as three stations. Thus, improvements can be made to the microearthquake locations for the time period before the additional stations were available. Comparisons of the results obtained with these two approaches will be shown and possible implications for the caldera-related origin of these events will be discussed. Public release of LASN data can be granted on a case-by-case basis.