Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Koyna, India: A very prominent site of artificial water reservoir-triggered seismicity

  • Published:
Journal of Earth System Science Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Anthropogenic activities such as gold and coal mining, oil and gas production, filling of artificial water reservoirs, harnessing of geothermal energy, etc., have induced/triggered earthquakes. Koyna dam, located in the Deccan volcanic province of India, was impounded in 1962, and soon after tremors were reported from the vicinity of Koyna dam. The largest triggered earthquake of magnitude (M) 6.3 occurred on 10 December 1967. The triggered earthquakes have continued until now and the region has experienced 22 events of an M~5, over 200 events of an M~4 and several thousand smaller events. The reservoir-triggered seismicity has continued until 2021, which is unique. Some of the early investigations, leading to drilling of a 3 km deep pilot borehole at Koyna for near-field studies of earthquakes, and a few recent results are summarised in this paper.

Research highlights

  • Koyna, located near the west coast of India, in the Deccan volcanic province is one of the most prominent sites of artificial water reservoir-triggered seismicity (RTS). Triggered earthquakes started soon after the impoundment of Shivaji Sagar lake created by Koyna dam in 1962 and have continued until now.

  • Unlike other RTS sites where triggered earthquakes did not continue for long, Koyna is still active, and it is estimated that RTS may continue for another one to two decades.

  • Detailed field work and analyses of earthquake data demonstrated that Koyna is a very suitable site for near-field studies of earthquakes: an observation that is much needed to validate earthquake genesis models.

  • International Continental Drilling Programme sponsored workshops and participation of experts from all over the world helped in deciding to dig a 3 km deep pilot borehole. The borehole was completed in June 2017.

  • Recent research studies further demonstrated that the Koyna region is under critical stress.

  • Studies under progress would help in designing the proposed ~7 km deep borehole laboratory.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
Figure 4
Figure 5
Figure 6

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Committee of Experts 1968 Report on the Koyna Earthquake of December 11, 1967 – 1 and 2, Govt. of India Press, New Delhi, 75p.

  • Dutta A, Sar P, Sarkar J, Dutta Gupta S, Gupta A, Bose H, Mukherjee A and Roy S 2019 Archaeal communities in deep terrestrial subsurface underneath the Deccan Traps, India; Front. Microbiol. 10 1362, https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2019.01362.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Geological Survey of India 1968 A Geological Report on the Koyna Earthquake of 11th December 1967, Calcutta, 242p.

  • Goswami D, Hazarika P and Roy S 2020 In situ stress orientation from 3 km borehole image logs in the Koyna seismogenic zone, Western India: Implications for transitional faulting environment; Tectonics 39(1) e2019TC005647.

  • Goswami D, Roy S and Akkiraju V V 2019 Delineation of damage zones from 3 km downhole geophysical logs in the Koyna seismogenic zone, western India; J. Geophys. Res.: Solid Earth 124, https://doi.org/10.1029/2018JB017257.

  • Gupta H K 1983 Induced seismicity hazard mitigation through water level manipulation at Koyna, India: A suggestion; Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 73 679–682.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gupta H K 1992 Reservoir induced earthquakes; Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 364p.

  • Gupta H K 2001 Short term earthquake forecasting may be feasible at Koyna, India; Tectonophys. 338 353–357.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gupta H K 2017 50 years of 10 December 1967 M 6.3 Koyna earthquake; J. Geol. Soc. India 90(6) 637–812.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gupta H K 2018 Review: Reservoir triggered seismicity (RTS) at Koyna, India, over the past 50 yrs; Bull. Seismol. Soc. Amer. 108 2907–2918.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gupta H K 2021 Understanding anthropogenic earthquakes; Curr. Sci. 120(9) 1415–1416.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gupta H K and Iyer H M 1984 Are reservoir induced earthquakes of magnitude 5.0 at Koyna, India, preceded by pairs of earthquake of magnitude > 4.0?; Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 74 863–873.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gupta H K, Mandal P and Rastogi B K 2002 How long will triggered earthquakes at Koyna, India continue?; Curr. Sci. 82 202–210.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gupta H K, Narain H, Rastogi B K and Mohan I 1969 A study of the Koyna earthquake of Dec. 10, 1967; Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 59 1149–1162.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gupta H K and Nayak S 2011 Deep scientific drilling to study reservoir triggered earthquakes in Koyna, western India; Sci. Drill. 12 53–54.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gupta H K, Shashidhar D, Periera M, Mandal P and Dimri V 2006 Prediction of an M ~ 4 earthquake in the Koyna region comes true!; J. Geol. Soc. India 68 149–150.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gupta H K, Rao N P, Roy S, Arora K, Tiwari V M, Patro B P K, Satyanarayana H V S, Shashidhar D, Mallika K, Akkiraju V V, Goswami D, Vyas D, Ravi G, Srinivas K N S S S, Srihari M, Mishra S, Dubey C P, Raju C V, Borah U, Reddy K C, Babu N, Rohilla S, Dhar U, Sen M and Rao Y J B 2014 Investigations related to scientific deep drilling to study reservoir-triggered earthquakes at Koyna; India Int. J. Earth Sci. 104 1511–1522.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gupta H K, Rao N P, Shashidhar D and Mallika K 2008 The disastrous M 7.9 Sichuan earthquake of 12 May 2008; J. Geol. Soc. India 72 325–330.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gupta H K and Rastogi B K 1976 Dams and earthquakes; Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 229p (translated into Russian in 1979 and Chinese in 1980).

  • Gupta H K, Rastogi B K and Narain H 1971 The Koyna earthquake of December 10, 1967: A multiple seismic event; Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 61 167–176.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gupta H K, Rastogi B K and Narain H 1972a Common features of the reservoir associated seismic activities; Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 62 481–492.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gupta H K, Rastogi B K and Narain H 1972b Some discriminatory characteristics of earthquakes near the Kariba, Kremasta and Koyna artificial lakes; Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 62 493–507.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gupta H K, Shashidhar D, Periera M, Mandal P, Rao N P, Kousalya M, Satyanarayana H V S and Dimri V P 2007 Earthquake forecast appears feasible at Koyna, India; Curr. Sci. 93 843–848.

    Google Scholar 

  • Johnston A C, Kanter L R, Coppersmith K J and Cornell C A 1994 The earthquakes of stable continental regions. Volume 3: Seismicity data sheets (part 1); Final report, No. EPRI-TR-102261-V3, Electric Power Research Institute.

  • Kerr R A and Stone R 2009 A human trigger for the great quake of Sichuan?; Science 323(5912) 322–322.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Krishna J, Chandrasekaran A R and Saini S S 1969 Analysis of Koyna accelerogram of December 11, 1967; Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 59(4) 1719–1731.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Krishnan M S 1960 Geology of India and Burma; Higginbotham’s, Madras, 604p.

  • Michas G, Pavlou K, Vallianatos F and Drakatos G 2020 Correlation between seismicity and water level fluctuations in the Polyphyto dam, North Greece; Pure Appl. Geophys. 177(8) 3851–3870.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mogi K 1963 Some discussions on aftershocks, foreshocks and earthquake swarms – The fracture of a semi-infinite body caused by an inner stress origin and its relation to earthquake phenomena; Bull. Earthq. Res. Inst. 41 615–658.

    Google Scholar 

  • Narain H and Gupta H K 1968 Koyna earthquake; Nature 217 1138–1139.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ohnaka M 1992 Earthquake source nucleation: A physical model for short-term precursors; Tectonophys. 211 249–278.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pavlou K 2019 Relationship between observer seismicity and water level fluctuations in Polyphyto dam area (North Greece); J. Geogr. Environ. Earth Sci. Int. 21(2) 1–10.

    Google Scholar 

  • Podugu N, Mishra S, Wiersberg T and Roy S 2019 Chemical and noble gas isotope compositions of formation gases from a 3 km deep scientific borehole in the Koyna seismogenic zone, Western India; Geofluids 2019(12) 1–16.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Podugu N, Yadav A, Mallika K, Goswami D and Uma Anuradha M 2018 Report on ICDP post-operations on international workshop on scientific deep drilling at Koyna, India, Pune 14–16, 2017; J. Geol. Soc. India 91(1) 120–124.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rao N P, Arora K, Ponomarev A and Do Nascimento A F 2018 Introduction to the special issue fifty years after the 1967 Koyna earthquake – Lessons learned about reservoir seismicity (RTS); Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 108(5B) 2903–2906.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rastogi B K and Mandal P 1999 Foreshocks and nucleation of small- to moderate-sized Koyna earthquakes (India); Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 89(3) 829–836.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rekapalli R and Gupta H K 2021 Characterization of injection-induced seismicity at north central Oklahoma, USA; J. Seismol. 25 327–337.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tandon A N and Chaudhry H M 1968 Koyna earthquake of 10 December 1967, India Meteorological Department, Scientific Report No. 59, 12.

  • Uma Anuradha M and Mallika K 2017 Reservoir loading parameters at Koyna and their correspondence with reservoir triggered seismicity; J. Geol. Soc. India 90 802–804.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Uma Anuradha M, Rekapalli R, Sudheer K, Jagadeesh P and Satyanarayana H V S 2021 Triggering of earthquakes at Koyna, India and hammer drilling for the pilot borehole. J. Nat. Hazards, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-021-04874-8.

Download references

Acknowledgements

It is a pleasure to dedicate this paper to the special volume being brought out in the memory of Professor Gautam Sen. I had the good opportunity to be with Professor Sen at the University of Texas at Dallas for several years during 1970s. Our interactions continued as we met often during AGU meetings in the United States, and elsewhere. His contributions to geosciences are immense for which he would be always remembered, besides being a very good human being. The study reported here has been carried out with several scientists at NGRI, BGRL and elsewhere. They are too many to be mentioned. CSIR-NGRI and NASI are acknowledged for support.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. CSIR-National Geophysical Research Institute, Hyderabad, Telangana, 500 007, India

    Harsh K Gupta

Authors
  1. Harsh K Gupta
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

The study reported here summarises a number of published studies on reservoir-triggered seismicity in Koyna, India, several of them by Harsh K. Gupta. A way forward towards achieving the target of establishing a deep borehole laboratory at Koyna, India is also presented.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Harsh K Gupta.

Additional information

Communicated by N V Chalapathi Rao

This article is part of the Topical Collection: Deccan Traps and other Flood Basalt Provinces – Recent Research Trends.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Gupta, H.K. Koyna, India: A very prominent site of artificial water reservoir-triggered seismicity. J Earth Syst Sci 131, 30 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12040-021-01780-2

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12040-021-01780-2

Keywords

Search

Navigation