The plausibility of claimed induced seismicity

Abstract Claims of industrially induced seismicity vary from indisputable to unpersuasive and the veracity of industrial induction is vital for regulatory and operational practice. Assessment schemes have been developed in response to measure the reliability of cases. We report here application of a standardised scheme E-PIE by a single seismologist to the HiQuake database of all known cases globally. 1235 cases were studied over around 1000 hours. Evidence relating to the temporal and spatial earthquake distributions tended to provide the strongest evidence for human-induction and information regarding nearby pre-industrial seismicity tended to undermine claims of induction. Of the 881 cases presenting scorable evidence, 87% fall within the category ‘Confidently Induced’, 10% were ‘Probably Induced’, 2% were ‘Equivocal’ and <1% were ‘Confidently Natural’. The most-seismogenic activities are fracking, research, geothermal, water reservoir impoundment, and conventional oil and gas. The least-seismogenic activities are construction, deep penetrating bombs and coal bed methane. 29% lack evidence required for assessment and significant potential exists to increase understanding by applying data mining techniques including natural language processing and AI to uncover new evidence. Best practice may be an independent panel of scientists who rapidly apply a questionnaire scheme, draw consensus, and inform a response.