Introduction

Abstract

The first known example of reservoir-induced seismicity was documented at Lake Mead reservoir, created by the Hoover Dam on the Colorado river in the United States of America during the late 1930s. During the 1960s several earthquakes exceeding magnitude 6 occurred in the vicinity of artificial water reservoirs at Xinfengjiang, China (1962); Kariba, Zambia-Zimbabwe border (1963); Cremasta, Greece (1966); and Koyna, India (1967). Over the years, the number of cases of induced earthquakes as a consequence of some of man’s engineering activity, such as the impounding of deep artificial water reservoirs, underground mining, high-pressure fluid injection, large-scale surface quarry, oil production, geothermal power generation, waste disposal, etc. has increased and crossed 100 known sites globally. The Koyna reservoir in India continues to be the most significant site of reservoir-induced earthquakes. Such earthquakes began to occur soon after the impoundment of the Shivajisagar Lake in 1962 and continue to occur, the latest being the 12th and 13th of March, 1995 earthquakes exceeding magnitude 4. With the advent of sophisticated instrumentation, borehole measurement, and advanced computational techniques, it appears that we are closer to apprehending the mechanism of induced earthquakes, and thereby improving our understanding of the physics of the earthquakes.