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Using a Deep Neural Network and Transfer Learning to Bridge Scales for Seismic Phase Picking
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  • Chengping Chai,
  • Monica Maceira,
  • Hector Santos-Villalobos,
  • Singanallur Venkatakrishnan,
  • Martin Schoenball,
  • Weiqiang Zhu,
  • Gregory C. Beroza,
  • Clifford H Thurber
Chengping Chai
Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Monica Maceira
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (DOE)
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Hector Santos-Villalobos
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
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Singanallur Venkatakrishnan
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
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Martin Schoenball
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
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Weiqiang Zhu
Stanford University
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Gregory C. Beroza
Stanford University
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Clifford H Thurber
University of Wisconsin-Madison
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Abstract

The important task of tracking seismic activity requires both sensitive detection and accurate earthquake location. Approximate earthquake locations can be estimated promptly and automatically; however, accurate locations depend on precise seismic phase picking, which is a laborious and time-consuming task. We adapted a deep neural network (DNN) phase picker trained on local seismic data to meso-scale hydraulic fracturing experiments. We designed a novel workflow, transfer-learning aided double-difference tomography, to overcome the three orders of magnitude difference in both spatial and temporal scales between our data and data used to train the original DNN. Only 3,500 seismograms (0.45% of the original DNN data) were needed to re-train the original DNN model successfully. The phase picks obtained with transfer-learned model are at least as accurate as the analyst’s, and lead to improved event locations. Moreover, the effort required for picking once the DNN is trained is a small fraction of the analyst’s.
28 Aug 2020Published in Geophysical Research Letters volume 47 issue 16. 10.1029/2020GL088651