Seismic Imaging of the Geothermal Field at Krafla, Iceland

Abstract

During the summer of 2004 we recorded the seismicity at the Krafla geothermal field for forty days with an array of twenty PASSCAL L-28 4.5-Hz sensors. The Krafla field is located approximately 60 km East of Akureyri in northern Iceland. The array covered an area approximately 5 km N-S by 4 km E-W. The field area is located on Holocene lava flows on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.

The array recorded approximately 5 micro-earthquakes per day at a sampling rate of 500 Hz. This high sampling rate is required to exploit newly developed theories on the frequency-dependence of shear-wave splitting (SWS). During the experiment, the injection well was stopped for ten days to study the response of the subsurface crack system to changes in water pressure. SWS is an exploration method based on the analyses of polarizations and time delays of shear waves that have been distorted by the nisotropy of the medium through which the seismic waves have propagated.

Epicenters roughly align along the E-W direction, while hypocenters are shallow around the injection well and appear to be related to the on-going injection. Observations of SWS at Krafla have provided evidence for at least two major crack systems oriented approximately N-S and E-W. This last, rather unexpected direction is consistent with results from a simultaneous MT agneto-telluric)survey. Further SWS study will lead to a more detailed understanding of the fracture locations, sizes, and orientations in the geothermal field.