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One of the destroying natural processes is the initiation of the regional seismic activity. It leads to a large number of human deaths. Much effort has been made to develop precise and robust methods for the estimation of the seismic stability of buildings. One of the most common approaches is the natural frequency method. The obvious drawback of this approach is a low precision due to the model oversimplification. The other method is a detailed simulation of dynamic processes using the finite-element method. Unfortunately, the quality of simulations is not enough due to the difficulty of setting the correct free boundary condition. That is why the development of new numerical methods for seismic stability problems is a high priority nowadays.

The present work is devoted to the study of spatial dynamic processes occurring in geological medium during an earthquake. We describe a method for simulating seismic wave propagation from the hypocenter to the day surface. To describe physical processes, we use a system of partial differential equations for a linearly elastic body of the second order, which is solved numerically by a grid-characteristic method on parallelepiped meshes. The widely used geological hypocenter model, called the “double-couple” model, was incorporated into this numerical algorithm. In this case, any heterogeneities, such as geological layers with curvilinear boundaries, gas and fluid-filled cracks, fault planes, etc., may be explicitly taken into account.

In this paper, seismic waves emitted during the earthquake initiation process are numerically simulated. Two different models are used: the homogeneous half-space and the multilayered geological massif with the day surface. All of their parameters are set based on previously published scientific articles. The adequate coincidence of the simulation results is obtained. And discrepancies may be explained by differences in numerical methods used. The numerical approach described can be extended to more complex physical models of geological media.

Seismic survey process is the common method of prospecting and exploration of deposits: oil and natural gas. Invented at the beginning of the XX century, it has received significant development and is currently used by almost all service oil companies. Its main advantages are the acceptable cost of fieldwork (in comparison with drilling wells) and the accuracy of estimating the characteristics of the subsurface area. However, with the discovery of non-traditional deposits (for example, the Arctic shelf, the Bazhenov Formation), the task of improving existing and creating new seismic data processing technologies became important. Significant development in this direction is possible with the use of numerical simulation of the propagation of seismic waves in realistic models of the geological medium, since it is possible to specify an arbitrary internal structure of the medium with subsequent evaluation of the synthetic signal-response.

The present work is devoted to the study of spatial dynamic processes occurring in geological medium containing fractured inclusions in the process of seismic exploration. The authors constructed a three-dimensional model of a layered massif containing a layer of fluid-saturated cracks, which makes it possible to estimate the signal-response when the structure of the inhomogeneous inclusion is varied. To describe physical processes, we use a system of equations for a linearly elastic body in partial derivatives of the second order, which is solved numerically by a grid-characteristic method on hexahedral grid. In this case, the crack planes are identified at the stage of constructing the grid, and further an additional correction is used to ensure a correct seismic response for the model parameters typical for geological media.

In the paper, three-component area seismograms with a common explosion point were obtained. On their basis, the effect of the structure of a fractured medium on the anisotropy of the seismic response recorded on the day surface at a different distance from the source was estimated. It is established that the kinematic characteristics of the signal remain constant, while the dynamic characteristics for ordered and disordered models can differ by tens of percents.