A shallow seismic velocity model for the Groningen area in the Netherlands

Abstract

The province of Groningen in the Netherlands holds one of the world's largest natural gas fields, and it has been an important source of energy for Western Europe for many decades. The seismicity in recent years called for a better understanding of the local subsurface, and therefore a dense network of 70 boreholes was installed in early 2015. Each borehole is equipped with four geophones and a surface accelerometer. In this study, data from this network are used to determine the shallow velocity structure that is important for the quantification of the seismic hazard and accurate source localizations. Compressional and shear wave velocity profiles with uncertainties are derived for each of the 200 m deep boreholes using passive seismic interferometry applied to local event data. The resulting seismic velocity distributions are presented as contour maps for 50 m depth intervals. The maps show strong lateral variations, where areas of low VP/VS ratio correspond to regions of sedimentary infill. The shear wave velocities were derived using the transverse component seismograms. Because the sensor orientations of the borehole geophones were unknown, they had to be determined first. This was done using a novel method based on cross correlations between the geophones and their colocated surface accelerometer. In addition, by extensive cross-correlation analysis over the network, several installation inconsistencies were identified and resolved.