Spatial distribution of blast-triggered seismic events: a case-study of the Khibiny Massif

The paper considers spatial distribution of seismic events triggered by blasts during mineral mining in the Khibiny Massif. The subject of the study is the production blasts and seismic events recorded by the seismic monitoring network of Kirovsk Branch of Apatit in 1996–2020. The chains of seismic events triggered by blasts were identified using the nearest-neighbor method. The studies prove that earthquake-to-blast distances averagely obey an exponential distribution independent of the triggering blast magnitudes. The model of the maximal distances from a triggering blast hypocenter to the expected aftershocks with a given probability is constructed in the study. The model agrees with the actual data. The recommendations on using the mode are substantiated from the analysis of the error diagrams. The study includes results obtained under the state contract between the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation and the Geophysical Survey of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Contract No. 075-01471-22.