Array in Wittewierum, Netherlands

A temporary installation has been realized in the Netherlands, in the region of the Groningen gas field. The objective of this installation is to test the usage of a conventional array layout for detection of microseismicity. The region of the Groningen gas field is an excellent test ground, since the operating company NAM (Nederlandse Aardolie Maatschappij) installed a multitude of shallow borehole stations from 2014 to 2017, of which 65 – in addition to the already existing shallow borehole stations installed by KNMI (Koninklijk Nederlands Meteorologisch Instituut) – were already online during the time of measurement, thus ensuring an earthquake catalogue that is complete down to low magnitudes during the time of array installation. The site for the installation was decided together with local parties involved in the seismicity monitoring, i.e. KNMI and NAM, and was located close to the village of Wittewierum. Stations were installed from the 12th of July 2016 to the 29th of August 2016 (49 days). The array was composed of 9 stations. The array was constructed in three concentric rings of 75 m, 150 m and 225 m diameter including a central station, but the geometry had to be adapted to the local conditions. Each station consisted of a broadband sensor (Trillium 120 s), an acquisition system (CUBE datalogger), a battery, and a GPS antenna. The entire system was installed at ~1 m depth (apart from GPS and transmission antennas), requiring only the digging of shallow holes, one for the installation of a thin concrete plate and the sensor, another one for a box containing the remaining instrumentation. The array stations recorded continuously with little outages; only station WAR1 stopped recording on the 22nd of August and station WAR7 stopped recording from 20th to 22nd of August. Waveform data is available from the GEOFON data centre, under network code 1C, and is fully open.