Northern B.C. will soon have its own independent seismologist.
Five partner agencies have pooled their resources so Dr. Alireza Babaie Mahani can spend the next two years checking on the underground tremors that are or are not caused by hydraulic fracturing and other industrial activity going on in the northeast quadrant of the province.
The five partners are Geoscience BC, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, Natural Resources Canada (NRCan), the BC Oil & Gas Commission (BCOGC) and the Science and Community Environmental Knowledge Fund. They are acting together under a group they call the Induced Seismicity Monitoring Network Consortium.
"As part of his two-year contract with the consortium, Dr. Mahani will work closely with other seismology experts from NRCan's Pacific Geoscience Centre and the BCOGC to monitor induced seismicity from natural gas development in northeast B.C. and study the relationship between fluid injection and potential large-magnitude seismic events," said a written statement from Geoscience BC, the province's leading agency collecting independent data on the underground features of the province.
Mahani is an engineering seismologist with experience in earthquake ground motion analysis from natural and man-made (induced) events and seismic hazard assessment.
According to the consortium, his credentials include presentations at leading conferences, research publication in journals including the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America. He received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. from universities in Iran before moving to Canada in 2008 to pursue a Ph.D. program in geophysics at Western University, from which he graduated in 2013.
Leading up to his commencement as seismologist with the Consortium, he held a post-doctoral position at the University of Calgary.
"The enhanced seismic network is providing publicly available information that also enables the energy sector and the regulator to continue the safe and responsible development of B.C.'s natural gas resources," said Carlos Salas, Geoscience BC's vice-president specializing in the oil and gas sector. "We are excited about the addition of Dr. Mahini to the project, as his expertise will strengthen our understanding of the causes of induced seismicity and allow the Consortium to make recommendations about how to mitigate the potential effects of resource operations."
The Consortium was formed in late 2012 in response to recommendations set forth in the BCOGC report called Investigation of Observed Seismicity in the Horn River Basin.
In spring 2013, six state-of-the-art seismographs were installed in northeast B.C. to complement two existing Canadian National Seismic Network stations. The collection of instruments was put in place so the public would have open-access data on the seismic activity created from natural gas operations.
The consortium has a five-year mandate to collect and analyze the seismic data. In November 2014, the BCOGC and NRCan added two more seismographs to the network. Now they have added Mahani as a dedicated analyst.
