Short-term forecasting of M(max) during hydraulic fracturing

Previous studies of injection-induced earthquake sequences have shown that the maximum magnitude (M(max)) of injection-induced seismicity increases with the net injected volume (V); however, different proposed seismic-hazard paradigms predict significantly different values of M(max). Using injection and seismicity data from two project areas in northeastern British Columbia, Canada, where hydraulic fracturing induced seismicity was observed, we test the predictive power and robustness of three existing and one novel method to estimate M(max). Due to their vastly different values of seismogenic index (Σ), these two project areas represent end-member cases of seismogenic response. Our novel method progressively adjusts the M(max) forecast under the assumption that each recorded event embodies an incremental release of fluid-induced stress. The results indicate that our method typically provides the lowest upper bound of the tested methods and it is less sensitive to site-specific calibration parameters such as Σ. This makes the novel method appealing for operational earthquake forecasting schemes as a real-time mitigation strategy to manage the risks of induced seismicity.