No abstract

Taupō, New Zealand, is an active caldera volcano that in recent times has erupted on average every ~500 years, with the latest explosive eruption in 232±10 CE. Monitoring at Taupō is challenging as there has been no eruptive activity in documented history; however, Taupō does undergo periods of unrest on roughly a decadal timescale, such as in 2019. Key to identifying these unrest periods is understanding what represents 'normal' inter-unrest activity. In this study, we generate an earthquake catalogue for Taupō for 2010–2019 inclusive, consisting of 46,481 earthquakes. This shows that the Taupō region has background earthquake rates of 50–200 earthquakes per month and the 2019 unrest episode was preceded by an exponential increase in earthquake rate. We also show that when attenuation is accounted for there is no evidence for low-frequency earthquakes at Taupō, and that this is an important consideration for volcano monitoring and determining the presence of significant magma movement.

An anomalous seismic sequence of five small (MW < 3) felt earthquakes occurred between 29 August 2020 and 05 December 2020 around the Victoria Reservoir in the central highlands of Sri Lanka that clearly exceeded the established national background seismic rate. Using seismic waveform template-matching and a newly developed single-station earthquake location method based on travel-time back-projection, we detected an additional co-located 23 microseismic events, of which 18 occurred within the same period as the felt events. This hitherto undetected seismic swarm defines a seismogenic zone beneath the western flank of the reservoir between 1.5 and 3 km depths. The reservoir-induced peak stresses, resolved on E-W striking faults, predicted from the poroelastic theory that include both drained and undrained crustal responses are ~ 15 kPa in an area overlapping the seismogenic zone, which, together with the physical and spatio-temporal characteristics of the seismic swarm, establish a causal link between reservoir-induced stresses and the earthquake swarm with implications to seismic hazard. This is the first record of induced seismicity in Sri Lanka. The newly developed efficient computational workflows with minimal operational costs described in our study provide a blueprint for monitoring reservoir-induced seismicity in developing countries with severe resource limitations.

&lt;p&gt;The Hikurangi subduction margin offshore of the east coast of New Zealand displays along-strike variations in subduction-thrust slip behavior. Geodetic observations show that the subduction-thrust of the southern segment of the margin is locked on the 30-100 year scale and the northern segment displays periodic slow-slip on the 1-2 year scale. It is hypothesised that spatial variations in pore-pressure may play a role in this contrasting phenomenon. Higher pore-pressures would result in lower effective stresses, which promote slow-slip of the subduction-thrust. In addition, the presence of a sedimentary wedge with very low shear wave-speeds in the northern Hikurangi margin has been proposed to fit the ultra-long duration of ground motions observed following the 2016 Kaikoura earthquake. Compressional (P-) wave velocities (V&lt;sub&gt;p&lt;/sub&gt;) of the subsurface provide useful information about the lithological composition. Combined with shear (S-) wave velocities (V&lt;sub&gt;s&lt;/sub&gt;), the V&lt;sub&gt;p&lt;/sub&gt;/V&lt;sub&gt;s&lt;/sub&gt; ratio which is directly related to Poisson&amp;#8217;s ratio can be obtained. This is a diagnostic property of a rock&amp;#8217;s consolidation and porosity. Typical V&lt;sub&gt;p&lt;/sub&gt;/V&lt;sub&gt;s&lt;/sub&gt; ratio of consolidated and crystalline rocks range from 1.6 to 1.9 and that of unconsolidated sediments can range from 2.0 to 4.0.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;We use the controlled sources of R/V Marcus G Langseth recorded by a profile of 49 multi-component ocean bottom seismometers (OBS) along the Hikurangi margin forearc for the Seismogenesis at Hikurangi Integrated Research Experiment (SHIRE) to derive the V&lt;sub&gt;s&lt;/sub&gt; structure and estimate the V&lt;sub&gt;p&lt;/sub&gt;/V&lt;sub&gt;s &lt;/sub&gt;ratio. The orientations of the horizontal components of each OBS are found by a hodogram analysis and by an eigenvalue-decomposition of the covariance matrix. Using the orientations, the horizontal components of each OBS are rotated into radial and transverse components. P to S converted phases are identified on the radial and transverse components considering their linear moveout, polarisation angle, and ellipticity. We confirm incoming S-waves to OBSs by comparing them with their hydrophone components. We identify both PPS (up-going P-wave after reflection or refraction converts to an S-wave at an interface) and PSS (down-going P-wave from the controlled source converts to an S-wave at an interface) type conversions. The identified conversion interfaces are the sediment-basement interface and the top of the subducting crust. The travel-time delay of a PPS type conversion relative to its P-wave arrival is indicative of V&lt;sub&gt;s&lt;/sub&gt; above the converting interface. The linear-moveout of PSS type conversions are indicative of V&lt;sub&gt;s&lt;/sub&gt; along the raypath after the conversion. Preliminary results from the southern Hikurangi margin suggest V&lt;sub&gt;p&lt;/sub&gt;/V&lt;sub&gt;s&lt;/sub&gt; ratios of ~1.70 for the basement rocks above the subducting crust and ~1.90 for the sediments overlying the basement rocks. These values indicate that the basement rocks are consolidated and less porous than the overlying sediments.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;We expect to estimate the V&lt;sub&gt;p&lt;/sub&gt;/V&lt;sub&gt;s&lt;/sub&gt; ratios in the northern Hikurangi margin to assess the role played by pore-pressure in the along-strike variation in subduction-thrust slip behavior. We also expect to ascertain the presence and estimate the thickness of the low-velocity sediment wedge in the northern Hikurangi margin.&lt;/p&gt;