Seismicity of proposed radioactive waste disposal site in southeastern New Mexico
- 1 January 1974
- book
- Published by New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources
Abstract
Seismicity was determined for the area within a 300-km radius from the proposed nuclear waste disposal site in southeastern New Mexico. The primary data used to establish seismic risk were: reports of felt shocks prior to 1961; instrumental epicenters and magnitudes from 1961 through 1972; and lengths, displacements, and ages of fault scarps cutting Quaternary geomorphic surfaces. The principal results of this study were: (1) earthquakes exceeding local magnitude 3.5 have not occurred within 40 km of the site in the past 12 years; probably not in the past 50 years, (2) on the average of once every 50,000 years major earthquakes are possible within 115 km of the site, but these events will produce accelerations of only about 0.07 g at the site; and (3) some evidence indicates that earthquakes located on the Central Basin Platform, 80-100 km southeast of the site, could be related to water injection for secondary recovery of oil.This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: