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Seismicity-based estimation of the driving fluid pressure in the case of swarm activity in Western Bohemia

Hainzl, S., T. Fischer, and T. Dahm (2012)

In Western Bohemia/Vogtland, seismicity is dominated by episodic earthquake swarm activity. Previous investigations indicated that fluids and their related pore-pressure changes played an important role for the earthquake generation in this region. However, no quantitative estimation of the involved pressure changes have been given so far. Here we made a first attempt for a quantification based on the observed seismicity pattern of the recent two large earthquake swarms in this region. We make use of a combination of alternative approaches to increase the robustness of our estimation. Based on stress-calculations and hydrofracture modeling, we find that the pore-pressure increase responsible for the initiation and driving of the activity was likely in the order of 20-30 MPa.