The U. S. Geological Survey (USGS) makes long-term seismic hazard forecasts that are used in building codes. The hazard models usually consider only natural seismicity; non-tectonic (man-made) earthquakes are excluded because they are transitory or too small. In the past decade, however, thousands of earthquakes related to underground fluid injection have occurred in the central and eastern U.S. (CEUS), and some have caused damage. In response, the USGS is now also making short-term forecasts that account for the hazard from these induced earthquakes. Seismicity statistics are analyzed to develop recurrence models, accounting for catalog completeness. In the USGS hazard modeling methodology, earthquakes are counted on a map grid, recurrence models are applied to estimate the rates of future earthquakes in each grid cell, and these rates are combined with maximum-magnitude models and ground-motion models to compute the hazard The USGS published a forecast for the years 2016 and 2017.
Here, we document the development of the seismicity catalogs for the 2017 CEUS short-term hazard model. A uniform earthquake catalog is assembled by combining and winnowing pre-existing source catalogs. The initial, final, and supporting earthquake catalogs are made available here.
