13.11.2014: Dr. Patricia Martinez-Garzon (GFZ section "Geomechanics and Rheology") has received a fellowship within the „Helmholtz-Postdoctoral Programme“. The fellowship includes a three-year postdoc position and the option to participate in a management training and mentoring programme offered by the Helmholtz Association.

Dr. Martinez-Garzon joined GFZ in 2011 after completing her Master in Geophysics in Madrid. In GFZ section 3.2 she is studying induced seismicity in different types of geo-reservoirs. Her recently completed dissertation on “Seismomechanical Reservoir Response and Stress Field Evolution from Fluid-induced Seismicity“ has recently been awarded with the Friedrich-Robert-Helmert-Price by “Association of Friends and Sponsors of the GFZ “ for the best dissertation in 2014.

In the frame of the newly funded project she will address questions related to man-made changes in the crustal stress field within geo-reservoirs by studying seismicity induced by fluid injection. In particular she will investigate the potential of triggering pending large earthquakes on critically stressed nearby faults. Thereby she will combine geomechanical techniques with approaches for seismic hazard estimation.

To tackle these most relevant objectives Dr. Martinez-Garzon will make use of two unique data sets of induced seismicity and hydraulic parameters from the two geothermal projects “The Geysers“ located close to the San Andreas Fault and “Salton Through“ co-located with the San Jacinto-Fault, both in California. While one focus will be to elaborate on potential maximum magnitudes of induced earthquakes another focus will be to study static and dynamic stress triggering and subsequent transport of stress perturbations.

Principal collaborators in this project are Prof. Shapiro from Freie Universität Berlin and Prof. Ben-Zion from University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles. A six-month stay at USC is part of the grant. GFZ host for this project is Prof. Marco Bohnhoff.