The effect of sensor bandwidth limitations on the calculation of seismic hazard for mines

Reliable assessment of seismic hazard plays a vital role in addressing geotechnical risk in many mines. The data quality and assessed risk can be adversely affected by bandwidth limitations of the sensors in the mine’s seismic network. The influence of sensor bandwidth on the recorded waveforms is well understood and has been observed from as early as 1976 by Hanks and Johnson. Boore (1986) and Di Bona and Rovelli (1988) provide analytical formulations to describe the influence of sensor bandwidth on the calculated source parameters. In the most recent RaSiM8 conference, Mendecki (2013) revisited this work and discussed the impact on different seismic source parameters. This paper investigates the impact of bandwidth limitations on the assessment of seismic hazard.
We found that this phenomenon is present in seismic mine databases. The assessment of mmax (defined as the credible next largest event) may be sensitive to bandwidth limitations. Hazard assessment methods that do not depend heavily on the assessment of mmax are less affected. Finally, for magnitude calculations depending only on the radiated seismic energy, the effect of the bandwidth limitations are less severe.