Seismic risks to critical infrastructure – mapping the seismogenic thickness of Western Europe

Project lead

Project summary

As part of the drive to Net Zero, several countries, including both the UK and France, are investing heavily in nuclear power generation to help meeting the demands for low-carbon energy supplies. The potential risks posed to nuclear infrastructure by seismic hazards are significant and unique among large-scale infrastructure projects. The catastrophic results of insufficient seismic engineering for active power generation sites demand a comprehensive understanding of the seismic hazards posed to power plants on a decadal timescale, whilst the selection of sites for long-term nuclear waste repositories requires a very different perspective on seismic hazard, with a requirement for seismically stable sites on timescales spanning millennia.

A crucial part of understanding the seismic hazard in low-strain environments, such as western Europe, is understanding the seismogenic thickness – the depth range over which earthquakes can occur, and which therefore plays a dominant role in determining the maximum magnitude of earthquakes that might occur. Seismicity in such environments is rare, typically of small magnitude, and often poorly observed due to relatively sparse observational networks. This leads to a lack of understanding of, or observational constraint on, what the seismogenic thickness of such areas might be, and how it might vary. In this project, you will seek to address this through the use of recently-developed approaches to enhancing the seismic signals from small-magnitude earthquakes (e.g., Blackwell et al., 2024; Blackwell et al., 2025), and applying these to shallow earthquakes in Western Europe.

By the end of the project, we aim to have:

Adapted array-based waveform enhancement to allow waveform inversion for small, shallow, crustal earthquakes
Applied this to crustal seismicity in specific areas of Western Europe, to inform future seismic hazard assessment for critical infrastructure.

Project objectives

Combined approaches for array-based waveform enhancement with shallow earthquake waveform inversion.
Apply these approaches to earthquakes in critical areas of Western Europe.
Map out the seismogenic thickness of areas of Western Europe.

This project will involve seismic waveform processing, source mechanism and location determination through seismic waveform inversion, and would suit a geophysicist, physicist, or numerate geologist. Preliminary skills in coding, ideally in Python or a similar language, are a major asset.

Candidates are welcome to apply for Geosolutions scholarships for this project. Candidates may also have the opportunity to apply for industrial funding, which could cover domestic fees and provide a stipend. The student will be based onsite at the University of Leeds, but may have the opportunity to interact with industrial partners. For further information on the project and opportunities for funding, please contact Dr Tim Craig at [email protected].