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Revisiting the Koyna-Warna seismic zone: strain budget, present-day potential and associated hazard

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Abstract

The Koyna-Warna region in western India is well known around the globe for recurrent reservoir-triggered seismicity soon after the impoundment of the Koyna and Warna reservoirs. The seismicity pattern delineates two distinct seismic zones, Koyna Seismic Zone (KSZ) and Warna Seismic Zone (WSZ). To understand the seismic potential of the region, we estimated the strain budget by analysing the published GPS velocities and earthquake catalogue of the region. Although the KSZ and WSZ are separated by ~25 km only, the rate of strain accumulation in the former (2.55E+16 Nm/year) is estimated to be ~11 times larger when compared to the latter (2.29E+15 Nm/year). However, KSZ releases only ~20% of the accumulated energy per year, whereas, WSZ releases most of the accumulated energy in the form of earthquakes. Best fitting elastic dislocation model for KSZ also shows a left lateral slip of 0.8 mm/year and the fault plane dips at ~77° in NW direction. The distribution of strain accumulation and release rates in the two regions may be attributed to significant spatial variability in the medium properties such as density, elastic constants and fracture density. This proposition is supported by other geophysical studies in the region. A density model constructed from Airborne Gravity Gradiometry (AGG) data also shows relatively higher average density for KSZ compared to the WSZ. The strain budget of the region suggests that the earthquake activity in KSZ may continue for a longer time whereas it may diminish in the WSZ in the near future. Based on the gross strain estimates, the KSZ has accumulated enough strain post the 1967 M6.3 Koyna earthquake to generate an event of Mw5.8, provided the accumulated strain is released in a single event. The seismic hazard scenario in terms of peak ground acceleration (PGA) due to a potential Mw5.8 event is estimated using the stochastic simulation (SS) technique. The simulated PGA at a radial distance of ~40km from the source zone is estimated to range between 0.09 and 0.26g with an expected intensity of V–VII.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the support provided by Secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences, for carrying out the studies under the Koyna Scientific Drilling Programme. The manuscript benefited from discussions with Deepjyoti Goswami. We thank Director, National Centre for Seismology, New Delhi, for extending facilities to carry out the analyses at BGRL and encouraging the study. Thomas Braun and the anonymous reviewers are sincerely acknowledged, whose comments helped in improving the quality of the current manuscript significantly.

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  1. Ministry of Earth Sciences, Borehole Geophysics Research Laboratory, Karad, India

    Anup K. Sutar & Sukanta Roy

  2. CSIR-National Geophysical Research Institute, Hyderabad, India

    V. M. Tiwari

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  1. Anup K. Sutar
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Sutar, A.K., Roy, S. & Tiwari, V.M. Revisiting the Koyna-Warna seismic zone: strain budget, present-day potential and associated hazard. J Seismol 25, 1265–1279 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10950-021-10024-1

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