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Detection of quarry and mine blast contamination in European regional catalogues

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Abstract

The presence of quarry and mine blasts in seismic catalogues is detected using the Wiemer and Baer (Bull Seism Soc Am 90(2):525–530, 2000) algorithm. The procedure is based on the observation that quarry blasts generally take place during daytime hours: the areas with a high ratio of daytime and night-time events are likely to be regions with quarry activity. In the first part of this work we have tested the method, using both a synthetic and a regional catalogue; in the second part the procedure has been applied to some of the European regional catalogues available on line. The comparison between the results obtained and the location of known quarries and mines for the analysed catalogues confirms the reliability of the methodology in identifying mining areas.

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Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Prof. Stefan Wiemer, Prof. Paolo Gasperini and the two anonymous reviewers. This research was partially supported by the transnational access activity of the European Union project NERIES (contract number 026130).

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  1. Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Via Donato Creti 12, 40128, Bologna, Italy

    Laura Gulia

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Gulia, L. Detection of quarry and mine blast contamination in European regional catalogues. Nat Hazards 53, 229–249 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-009-9426-8

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