Routine United States Mining Seismicity
The catalog, "Routine Mining Seismicity in the United States", provides listings of routine explosions and planned roof collapses at mines and quarries in the United States. For the period May 1997 through March 2000 the catalog was called "Probable Mining Explosions in the United States".
- GOAL AND SCOPE OF THE CATALOG explains the seismological context in which the routine explosions and collapses are recorded and their locations calculated: we discuss uncertainties in the magnitudes of the cataloged seismic events and variations in the completeness of the catalog.
- EVIDENCE USED IN IDENTIFYING ROUTINE MINING SEISMICITY explains the evidence that is used to identify routine explosions or planned collapses, and we note that in some areas a few natural earthquakes or unplanned rockbursts may be listed in the catalogs of routine mining seismicity.
- EXPLANATION OF CATALOG LISTINGS explains the parameters listed in "Routine Mining Seismicity in the United States".
- MINING SEISMICITY SOURCE REGIONS summarizes what we know about mining districts from which we have recorded explosions, planned collapses, and rockbursts.
Funds for the development of this catalog were provided by the Verification and Compliance Division of the United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency of the U.S. Department of Defense, and the U.S. Department of State.
Preliminary Results for the Last 91 days
Map of Recent Mining Seismicity
Catalogs
1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
1997
For the period May - September, 1997, catalogs list epicenters
for all mining-associated seismic events for which we had sufficient
data to obtain a stable location.
May | June | July | August | September
For October - November, catalogs list principally events for which computed magnitudes are 2.0 or higher and for which stable calculations of the epicenters can be achieved in several computation attempts.
For December - April, 1998, we suspended the cataloging of mining-associated seismic events except for a few events of special interest.
1998
January |
February |
March |
April
May-July, was a training period for a new analyst ; cataloged events were selected for their usefulness in training, rather than according to a magnitude criterion.
From August, to June, 1999, and from October, 1999, through September, 2002, mining associated seismic events having magnitude (ML, USGS) 2.5 or greater in the western U.S., or having magnitude (mbLg, USGS) 3.0 or greater in the eastern U.S., are listed if they are automatically detected and located by the USGS/NEIC near-real time system and if, after examination of the data by the analyst, a stable epicenter can be computed. In addition, smaller events are catalogued if, (1), they provide information on the characteristics of a region's mine-associated seismicity that cannot be obtained with the larger explosions or, (2), their epicenters have been reliably determined in the course of searching for larger events. For the period July -- September, 1999 and for the period beginning October 2002, we list only suspected explosions that have been reported in the Reviewed Event Bulletin (REB) of the Prototype International Data Center (PIDC) or the International Data Center (IDC) of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Organization.
August | September | October | November | December
1999
January |
February |
March |
April |
May |
June |
July -- September (REB events only) |
October |
November |
December
2000
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August |
September |
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December
2001
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December
2002
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December
2003
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October |
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December
2004
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December
2005
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December
2006
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October |
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December
2007
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2008
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August
Maps of Routine Mining Seismicity, Conterminous United States, May 1997 - March 2000
West Virginia, Maryland, Virginia, eastern Kentucky, southeastern Ohio, southern Pennsylvania
Northern Minnesota, northern Wisconsin, northern Michigan
Northern Wyoming, southern Montana, southeastern Idaho
More data on events listed in catalogs of "Routine Mining Seismicity in the United States"
Additional data are available by anonymous ftp (ftp://hazards.cr.usgs.gov/mineblast/). Bulletins that contain phase arrival-times used to compute mine-event epicenters have the form "mchedrYYMMex.dat". A catalog of the routine mining seismicity in GSE2.0 format is given as "mineevents.gct". These additional data are typically made available within one and two months of the date of the event.
Mining-induced seismicity listed in the "Preliminary Determination of Epicenters" publications of the USGS/NEIC
Unusually large mining-induced events that are listed in regular earthquake catalogs of the USGS/NEIC are not listed in the catalogs of "Routine Mining Seismicity in the United States."
Mining-induced events in the earthquake catalogs of the USGS/NEIC
Goals and Scope of the Catalog | Evidence used in Identifying Routine Mining Seismicity | Explanation of Catalog Listings | Mining Seismicity Source Regions
Comments and feedback: dewey@usgs.gov
