LOCATING AN ACTIVE FAULT ZONE IN CO 0 GEOTHERMAL FIELD BY ANALYZING SEISMIC GUIDED WAVES FROM MICROEARTHQUAKE DATA

Active fault systems usually provide high-permeability channels for hydrothermal outflow in geothermal fields. Locating such fault systems is of a vital importance to plan geothermal production and injection drilling, since an active fault zone often acts as a fracture-extensive low-velocity wave guide to seismic waves. We have located an active fault zone in the Cos0 geothermal field, California, by identifying and analyzing a fault-zone trapped Rayleigh-type guided wave from microearthquake data. The wavelet transform is employed to characterize guided-wave's velocity-frequency dispersion, and numerical methods are used to simulate the guided-wave propagation. The modeling calculation suggests that the fault zone is-200m wide, and has a