Assessing the probability of concealed active faults existing through Bayesian analysis of known active faults, historical seismicity and helium isotopes

Martin, A.*; Asamori, Koichi; Ishimaru, Tsuneari 

Assessing the stability of the geological environment including the spatio-temporal distribution of active faulting is of particular concern in the context of site selection of critical facilities such as nuclear power plants, spent fuel reprocessing facities as well as geological repositories or surface storage facilities of radioactive waste etc. Understanding the spatial distribution of active faulting is a particular challenge for geologists in that not all active faults have surface expressions. We present here a probabilistic approach based on Bayesian statistics that can be used to combine multiple datasets (in this case historic seismic data and helium isotopes sampled from wells) to produce hazard maps showing the likelihood of active faults existing or not.