Possible roles of the Zipingpu Reservoir in triggering the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake

Abstract

To better understand the role the Zipingpu Reservoir may have played in triggering the 2008 M s8 ( M w7.9) Wenchuan earthquake in China, this study evaluates changes of Coulomb failure stress (ΔCFS) and assesses their role in local seismicity and their potential impact on the Wenchuan earthquake. In addition, key aspects associated with reservoir-triggered earthquake (RTS), including mechanisms of stress triggering and permeability of fault zones, is briefly reviewed. ΔCFS was calculated at the faults involved in the Wenchuan earthquake due to the combined effects of gravitational loading and pore-pressure diffusion from the impoundment history of the reservoir. ΔCFS on the major source fault is larger than 0.1 MPa in the upper 10 km below the reservoir and reached a few tens of kPa at the focal depth. Such levels of ΔCFS are large enough to modulate the secular stress buildup of a few kPa/yr in the Longmen-shan thrust zone. Based on detailed analysis of numerical results and local seismicity, the author suggests that it is not proper to rule out the possibility of the Wenchuan earthquake being a RTS only based on very limited knowledge from a few cases of historical RTS so far.