The 2021 Tower Lake Dense Array Experiment for High-Resolution Microseismicity Monitoring During Hydraulic Fracturing
2026-05-09
The rapid expansion of hydraulic fracturing (HF) operations in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin (WCSB) has significantly altered regional seismicity patterns, leading to an increased frequency of injection-induced earthquakes (IIE). While existing regional networks provide robust monitoring for moderate-magnitude events, they often lack the resolution required to characterize small-magnitude seismicity and detailed rupture processes. To address this, a collaborative research project was launched to deploy the Tower Lake Dense Array (TLDA), a temporary high-resolution seismic network in northeast British Columbia. The TLDA (network code 4R) consisted of 36 stations, comprising 33 strong motion and 3 weak motion sensors, deployed in a 6 × 6 km grid with approximately 1 km inter-station spacing. Operating from January to June 2021, the array utilized novel high-resolution sensors, featuring 24-bit digitization, real-time wireless transmission, and GPS time synchronization. Technical validation using teleseismic and local injection-induced events demonstrates that the array provides high-fidelity waveforms across a broad frequency band. Analysis identified a consistent 180 ∘ polarity inversion in the vertical channels of the TLDA that must be corrected. This paper introduces the publicly available TLDA dataset and evaluates its operational performance.