Seismic fracture anisotropy in the Earth's crust: an overview

Abstract

A salient feature of fracture-related rock structure is the effective seismic anisotropy of aligned fractures and microcracks. With the advent of large-volume digital seismic data sets it is feasible to use polarized shear waves to explore the anisotropic fracture properties of the crust. Crustal fracture structures which may be monitored by polarized shear waves range in dimensions from the 10-100 km scale of crustal stress orientation and preseismic stress buildup, through the 100-1000 m scale of fluid reservoir structure and characterization, and the 1-10 scale of mining and geoengineering rock strain monitoring, to millimeter and micrometer or possibly smaller fluid-filled inclusions determining the elastic response of the intact rock mass. The paper introduces 19 conference papers presented in a special section of the Journal of Geophysical Research, following the Third International Workshop on Seismic Anistropy. -from Authors