Abstract
Assessing the detection threshold of seismic networks becomes of increased importance namely in the context of monitoring induced seismicity due to underground operations. Achieving the maximum possible sensitivity of industrial seismic monitoring is a precondition for successful control of technological procedures.
Similarly, the lowest detection threshold is desirable when monitoring the natural seismic activity aimed to imaging the fault structures in 3D and to understanding the ongoing processes in the crust. We compare the application of two different methods to the data of the seismic network WEBNET that monitors the earthquake swarm activity of the West-Bohemia/Vogtland region.
First, we evaluate the absolute noise level and its possible non-stationary character that results in hampering the detectability of the seismic network by producing false alarms. This is realized by the statistical analysis of the noise amplitudes using the ratio of 99 and 95 percentiles.
Second, the magnitude of completeness is determined for each of the nine stations by analysing the automatic detections of an intensive swarm period from August 2011. The magnitude-frequency distributions of all detected events and events detected at individual stations are compared to determine the magnitude of completeness at a selected completeness level.
The resulting magnitude of completeness M (c) of most of the stations varies between -0.9 and -0.5; an anomalous high M (c) of 0.0 is found at the most distant station, which is probably due to inadequate correction for attenuation. We find that while the absolute noise level has no significant influence to the station sensitivity, the noise stationarity correlates with station sensitivity expressed in low magnitude of completeness and vice versa.
This qualifies the method of analysing the stationary character of seismic noise as an effective tool for site surveying during the seismic station deployment.