A new seismicity catalogue of the eastern Alps using the temporary Swath-D network

Abstract

We present a new, consistently processed seismicity catalogue for the eastern and southern Alps based on the temporary dense Swath-D monitoring network. The final catalogue contains 6053 earthquakes for the time period 2017–2019 and has a magnitude of completeness of −1.0 ML. The smallest detected and located events have a magnitude of −1.7 ML. Aimed at the low to moderate seismicity in the study region, we have developed a multi-stage, mostly automatic workflow that combines a priori information from local catalogues and waveform-based event detection, subsequent efficient GPU-based (GPU: graphics processing unit) event search by template matching, P and S arrival time pick refinement, and location in a regional 3-D velocity model.

The resulting seismicity distribution generally confirms the previously identified main seismically active domains but provides increased resolution of the fault activity at depth. In particular, the high number of small events additionally detected by the template search contributes to a denser catalogue and provides an important basis for future geological and tectonic studies in this complex part of the Alpine orogen.