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Koyna earthquakes: a review of the mechanisms of reservoir-triggered seismicity and slip tendency analysis of subsurface faults

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Abstract

Koyna region in western India experienced more than 1,00,000 earthquakes of different magnitudes (M ~ 1.0–6.3) in the past five decades. Earthquakes in this region are believed to be triggered by a change in fluid pressure due to the percolation of the reservoir (Koyna and Warna reservoir) water into the subsurface. A drilling program was set up by the Ministry of Earth Sciences, India and International Continental Scientific Drilling Program (ICDP) to study the deep subsurface lithology, structure, thermal attributes, etc. as the area is covered by ~ 950 m of thick Deccan basalts. This paper reviews all the hypotheses proposed by earlier workers to explain the mechanism of reservoir trigger causing earthquakes and summarizes such theories to a simple generic model. Slip tendency analysis was further carried out based on the proposed model to explain the dependence of fault slip on fault geometry, rock mechanical properties, stress and fluid gradients. Finally, faults at various depths were characterized (favourably oriented, unfavourably oriented and severely misoriented) based on their potential to go into failure.

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Fig. 1

Modified after Gupta et al. (2015) and Yadav et al. (2016)

Fig. 2

Modified after Guha et al. (1968) and Yadav et al. (2016)

Fig. 3

Modified after Yadav et al. (2015)

Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6

Data from Rao and Shashidhar (2016)

Fig. 7
Fig. 8

Modified after Arora et al. (2017, 2018)

Fig. 9

Modified after Rao et al. (2017)

Fig. 10

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Acknowledgements

This research work is part of DD’s Doctoral research. DD and JM like to thank Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Bhopal for its financial support. The authors also like to acknowledge Mr. Krishanu Bandhopadhyay for his valuable suggestions. The authors acknowledge the donation of the academic license of MOVE software suite by Petroleum Experts Limited on which the results of the Slip-tendency analysis were verified.

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    Dip Das & Jyotirmoy Mallik

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Das, D., Mallik, J. Koyna earthquakes: a review of the mechanisms of reservoir-triggered seismicity and slip tendency analysis of subsurface faults. Acta Geophys. 68, 1097–1112 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11600-020-00457-6

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