Combined approach of poroelastic and earthquake nucleation applied to the reservoir-induced seismic activity in the Val d’Agri area, Italy


Loading...

Date

2020-08

Publication Type

Journal Article

ETH Bibliography

yes

Citations

Altmetric

Data

Abstract

In this work, an approach is developed to study the seismicity associated with the impoundment and level changes of a water reservoir (reservoir induced seismicity – RIS). The proposed methodology features a combination of a semi-analytical poroelastic model with an earthquake nucleation approach based on rate-and-state frictional law. The combined approach was applied to the case of the Pertusillo Lake, located in the Val d’Agri area (Italy), whose large seasonal water level changes are believed to induce protracted micro-seismicity (local magnitude ML < 3). Results show that the lake impoundment in 1962 could have produced up to 0.5 bar (1 bar = 100 kPa) changes in Coulomb failure stress (ΔCFS), while the seasonal water level variation is responsible for variation up to 0.05 bar. Modeling results of the seismicity rates in 2001−2014 show that the observed earthquakes are well correlated with the modeled ΔCFS. Finally, the reason that the seismicity is only observed at southwest of the Pertusillo Lake is provided, which is likely attributed to different rock lithologies and depletion caused by significant hydrocarbon exploitation in the northeastern sector of the lake.

Publication status

published

Editor

Book title

Volume

12 (4)

Pages / Article No.

802 - 810

Publisher

Elsevier

Event

Edition / version

Methods

Software

Geographic location

Date collected

Date created

Subject

Reservoir induced seismicity (RIS); Poroelasticity; Rate-and-state frictional law; Pertusillo lake

Organisational unit

02818 - Schweiz. Erdbebendienst (SED) / Swiss Seismological Service (SED) check_circle

Notes

Funding

821115 - Real-time Earthquake Risk Reduction for Europe (EC)
160555 - To induce or not to induce: an open problem. Study on injection-induced seismicity for GeoEnergy applications, from lab to field scale (SNF)

Related publications and datasets