This study involves seismic monitoring of a deep coal mine. The purpose is to examine the processes responsible for induced seismicity. A seismic network consisting of five three-component short-period seismometers located above the mine recorded the seismic data. The events discussed here occurred from March 1, 2009 until April 7, 2011 during the mining of three longwall panels and the data was telemetered to Blacksburg, Virginia. A correlation equation was developed to relate local magnitude estimated by automatic data processing software in near real-time to seismic moment for well-recorded events. Local magnitude is a relative measure of relative size for a suite of earthquakes, while seismic moment is an objective measure of the actual physical size. Using the calculated seismic moments, we calculated "moment magnitudes" (Mw) for all events, which allowed us to do further studies in terms of their absolute size as a function of both time and space. The results indicate that there are two distinct classes of seismic events at the mine. The first class consists of small (M<=0) earthquakes recorded near the moving mine face. The second class of seismicity occurs in the mined-out "gob" area of the longwall panel at a greater distance behind the moving face. Their occurrence and relation to the mining history, depth of overburden and geology of the roof rocks is a significant interest. Results show that thick overburden due to elevated topography has a positive correlation with the number of seismic events but is not the only controlling factor; other factors include gob size and geological variability. Another important observation is the high seismic attenuation of the rock mass above the mine. This appears to be the result of the fracturing and caving processes associated with the creation of the gob and the resulting subsidence of the ground surface. / Master of Science

By studying the frequency domain of seismic signals generated by earthquakes, the source parameters can be recovered, i.e., the seismic moment (M0) and the stress drop (Δσ). This method is an advantage especially since if the source parameters are calculated from the time domain a full waveform inversion is needed, therefore this procedure facilitates the computation. Besides, the moment magnitude (Mw) can be calculated from the seismic moment and, in turn, the local magnitude (ML) can be obtained by using an algorithm that matches different ranges of moment magnitude with their corresponding local magnitude. In the present thesis, small to moderate earthquakes in Northern Sweden have been used to develop a code that calculates the source parameters through the fitting of five different spectral models and, this way, discerns which model obtains the best determination of the parameters. These models have been chosen in a way that we can also extract information about the attenuation. The different models are; the Brune spectral model, Boatwright spectral model, Boatwright spectral model with a fixed fall-off rate, a general form of the spectral model with quality factor equal to 1000 and a general form of the spectral model with quality factor equal to 600. Among these models, the Boatwright model with fixed fall-off rate equal to 2, has been found to give the best fit to the data used in this thesis. This might be due to the regional conditions which are the low attenuation in the crust of northern Fennoscandia and the short hypocentral distances of the studied earthquakes. The earthquakes studied in the present thesis have shown a range of magnitudes from ML 4.2 to -0.2 with radius of an assumed circular fault ranging from 269 m to 66 m.

Une estimation précise de la magnitude est primordiale pour établir des catalogues de sismicité fiables. L’objectif de cette thèse est de développer une méthode d’estimation de la magnitude de moment à partir de la coda des ondes crustales applicable sur les sismogrammes numériques et analogiques. Afin d’étudier les propriétés de la coda en France, nous avons réalisé une analyse fréquentielle et régionale des enveloppes de coda. Nous avons pu estimer le moment sismique M0 et la magnitude de moment Mw pour des sismogrammes numériques, mais pas pour des enregistrements sur papier pour lesquels le filtrage n’est pas possible. Nous avons donc observé les propriétés de la coda dans le domaine temporel. Nous avons déterminé un modèle empirique afin de représenter les enveloppes de coda du signal brut et obtenir une magnitude de coda Mcoda. A partir de la relation linéaire Mcoda/Mw, nous avons déterminé la magnitude de moment directement sur les enregistrements analogiques en France. / Accurate magnitude determination is necessary to establish reliable seismicity catalogs in order to assess seismic hazard. The main goal of this PhD is to develop a method for estimating moment magnitude Mw from coda waves applicable to new digital seismograms as well as to old paper records in France. In order to analyze coda waves properties in France, a study of the regional and frequency properties of coda-wave envelopes has been performed. From this spectral analysis of coda waves, we can estimate seismic moment M0 and moment magnitude Mw from digital seismograms but not from paper records for which no frequency filtering is possible. Therefore, in a second step, we have analyzed the coda-waves properties directly in the time domain. We develop an empirical model which fits the coda envelopes of the raw signal and permits to obtain a coda magnitude Mcoda. From the Mcoda/Mw relationship, we determined the moment magnitude directly from the old paper records in France.