Over the past 5 years (date to summer 2024), my research group has focused on developing earthquake monitoring methods and applying them to both onshore and offshore scenarios, as well as understanding source characteristics and mechanisms in various tectonic settings. Our research has primarily concentrated on the following aspects:
Develop a machine learning-based seamless earthquake monitoring workflow (LOC-FLOW; Zhang M. et al., 2022; an earlier version was released in 2019) and apply it to study different types of earthquakes, including tectonic earthquakes (e.g., Liu M. et al., 2020) and induced earthquakes (e.g., Wang R. et al., 2020).
Investigate how induced earthquakes respond to pre-existing fractures and hydraulic fracturing operations by integrating a machine learning-based earthquake catalog and focal mechanism solutions (Zhao M. et al., 2023; Li D. et al., 2024).
Interpret the seismogenic structures and faulting mechanisms for tectonic earthquakes (Feng T. et al., 2022) and fluid injection-induced earthquakes (Zhao Y. et al., 2023).
Advance the understanding of the nucleation process of large earthquakes through the analysis of high-resolution earthquake catalogs and Coulomb stress (Liu M. et al., 2022a,b), as well as study the detailed initiation process and mechanisms of earthquake swarms (Liu M. et al., 2023).
Evaluate the accuracy of seismic discrimination, especially for low-yield explosions and nuclear tests, from both synthetic (Zhang M., 2023) and field data (the 12 May 2010 event; Zhang M. and Wen L., 2024) perspectives.
Develop novel machine learning methods for earthquake early warning (Zhang X. et al., 2021; Zhang X. and Zhang M., 2024), providing earthquake source parameters (i.e., location and magnitude) directly from real-time waveform streams.
Build 1-D velocity models and locate earthquakes using single station three-component waveforms and waveform modelling (Zhang M. et al., 2021)
Develop a machine learning seismic phase picker targeting ocean bottom seismometer data (Niksejel A. and Zhang M., 2024) and apply it to coastal regions of Canada, such as the Cascadia region (ongoing).