Earthquake catalogs for New Mexico and bordering areas II: 1999-2004

Earthquakes in New Mexico and bordering areas have been instrumentally located since 1962 at New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology . Catalogs of these earthquakes for the period 1962 through 1998 were published in 2002 . This report extends the cata loging of earthquakes for the region through 2004 . For this 6-yr period 198 earthquakes with magnitudes of 2 . 0 or greater were located . An unusual feature of the seismicity 1999 through 2004 is that 63% of the earthquakes were concentrated in two swarms, one near water disposal wells on the western edge of the Dagger Draw oil field in southeastern New Mexico, and the other within and bordering the coalbed methane fields of the Raton Basin in northeastern New Mexico . We suggest that the proximity of these swarms to oil and gas fields may indicate that the earthquakes are induced by destabilization of the crust through production and waste disposal practices . The remaining 37% of the earthquakes 1999 through 2004 were concentrated near Socorro and west Texas . Except for the Socorro area, activity along the Rio Grande rift was low .