In western Canada, there has been an increase in seismic activity linked to anthropogenic energy‐related operations including conventional hydrocarbon production, wastewater fluid injection, and, more recently, hydraulic fracturing (HF). Statistical modeling and characterization of the space, time, and magnitude distributions of the seismicity are vital for a better understanding of induced earthquake processes and development of forecasting models. In this work, a statistical analysis of the seismicity in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin was performed across past and present time periods by utilizing a compiled earthquake catalog for Alberta and eastern British Columbia. Specifically, the interevent space‐time distance distributions of earthquakes were studied using the nearest‐neighbor distance (NND) method. Additionally, the frequency‐magnitude statistics and aftershock parameters of several clusters were analyzed using the Gutenberg‐Richter relation and the epidemic‐type aftershock sequence model. The results suggest that recent regional changes in the NND distributions, namely, a disproportionate increase in loosely and tightly clustered seismic activity over time, are unnatural and likely due to the rise in HF operations for the development of unconventional resources. It is concluded that both these loosely and tightly clustered earthquake subpopulations differ measurably from what may be the region's tectonic seismic activity. Additionally, HF treatments have a greater probability of triggering swarm‐like sequences that sharply spike the seismicity rate and are characterized by larger Gutenberg‐Richter b values. In contrast, conventional production and wastewater disposal operations largely trigger loosely clustered activity with more typical magnitude occurrence distributions.

中文翻译：

---

加拿大西部沉积盆地内诱发地震的统计建模和表征

在加拿大西部，与人为能源相关的作业（包括常规碳氢化合物生产，废水注入和最近的水力压裂（HF））相关的地震活动有所增加。对地震活动的空间，时间和震级分布进行统计建模和表征对于更好地理解诱发地震过程和发展预测模型至关重要。在这项工作中，通过利用艾伯塔省和不列颠哥伦比亚省东部地区的已编制地震目录，对过去和当前时期加拿大西部沉积盆地的地震活动进行了统计分析。具体而言，使用最近邻距离（NND）方法研究了地震的事件间时空距离分布。另外，利用古腾堡-里希特关系和流行型余震序列模型分析了几个星团的频率-幅值统计和余震参数。结果表明，NND分布的近期区域变化（即随时间推移松散和紧密聚集的地震活动不成比例地增加）是不自然的，并且很可能是由于开发非常规资源的高频作业增加了。结论是，这些松散和紧密聚集的地震亚群与该地区的构造地震活动可能存在显着差异。此外，高频治疗更有可能触发类似蜂群的序列，从而急剧提高地震活动率，其特点是更大的古腾堡-里希特（Gutenberg-Richter）b值。相反，常规的生产和废水处理操作在很大程度上触发了具有更典型的幅度发生分布的松散集群活动。