Space–time clustering of seismic events and hazard assessment in the Zabrze-Bielszowice coal mine, Poland

The results of the statistical analysis of seismic activity recorded in the “Zabrze-Bielszowice” coal mine in Poland are presented in this article. The monitoring was conducted by a small network consisting of four triaxial geophones deployed in vertical holes in the roof. For over 1000 seismic events recorded during the two month's experiment, the location of sources was realized. The seismic sources were mostly located ahead of the active face of the longwall. Since the first day of the monitoring, cluster analysis was sequentially performed for increasing number of sources. At the end of the experiment, 31 clusters were identified. They consisted of different numbers of events and were separated in space. About 40% of the events were not included in the clusters. For each large cluster, hazard analysis was separately performed. The hazard function evaluated for the largest cluster was compared with hypocenters of high energy tremors (E>1000 J) recorded by the geophones in that area. For some cases, recorded tremors occurred after an abrupt decrease of hazard function, but only one of them was located in the vicinity of the appropriate cluster. We concluded that for the analyzed cluster, a correlation between evaluated hazard function and time occurrences of the high energy tremors existed. Except for one case, there is no space correlation between analyzed clusters and high energy tremors.