Seismicity clusters in the Eastern Alps: New insights from the large-N Swath-D seismic network

The installation of the temporary, large-N Swath-D seismic network in the years 2017-2019 (Heit et al., 2021) provided the basis for the recent compilation of a high-resolution, consistently processed seismicity catalogue for the eastern and southern Alps (Hofman et al., 2023). The catalogue contains more than 6,000 earthquakes with magnitudes down to −1.7 M_L.

 

In the present study, we analyse in more detail several of the newly detected microseismic clusters in the study area, which includes the most active parts of the Alps as well as particularly quiet regions with very little previously reported seismicity. We combine inter-event waveform similarity clustering, catalogue statistics and rupture mechanisms to characterise the clustered seismicity swarms and mainshock-aftershock sequences. We apply a relative location technique based on differential Ts-Tp arrival times to better resolve the seismogenenic structures. For subgroups of microseismic events with magnitudes Mw 1.2-3.0, we obtain moment tensor solutions using the flexible probabilistic inversion framework Grond, which allows to combine different fitting targets and frequency bands, while providing meaningful estimates of uncertainties (Heimann et al., 2018, Petersen et al., 2021). This adds to resolve subtle, but systematic variations of the inner-cluster seismicity.

Thanks to the outstanding network density, we can report a variability of seismic sequences and microseismic event mechanisms across the study area and interpret them with in terms of long-term tectonic and intermediate triggering processes.