Source Properties of Hydraulic‐Fracturing‐Induced Earthquakes in the Kiskatinaw Area, British Columbia, Canada
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract This work presents a high resolution source property study of hydraulic fracturing induced earthquakes in the Montney Formation, a low‐permeability tight shale reservoir in the Kiskatinaw area, northeast British Columbia, Canada. We estimate source parameters, including focal mechanism solutions (FMSs), seismic moment, spectral corner frequency, and static stress drop values of earthquakes recorded between July 2017 and July 2020. Waveform‐similarity‐based event classification of 8,283 earthquakes yields 52 event families (clusters) and 1,014 isolated events (individuals). We calculate a total of 64 FMSs of events ML > 2.5 with high‐quality waveforms. Of the 64 solutions, 54 come from events within families, and are used to infer an additional 3,500 focal mechanisms of smaller‐magnitude events with similar waveforms. The other 10 are isolated events. The dominant faulting style inferred from FMSs highlights multiple cascading, shallow, strike‐slip events and generally isolated, larger‐magnitude reverse‐style events in close proximity to the Fort St. John Graben system. Inferred nodal planes of strike‐slip events are at low‐angles to regional SHmax, suggesting optimally oriented, left‐lateral faults. Reverse faulting nodal planes are roughly perpendicular to SHmax and have an orientation consistent with the reactivation of pre‐existing normal basement faults. Source spectral analysis using three approaches, including spectral‐ratio fitting, suggests a constant stress drop of 1–10 MPa and self‐similarity for induced events. Constant stress drop scaling breaks down at magnitudes smaller than ∼ML 2.0, likely due to observational bandwidth limitations.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.005 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".