Source parameters of earthquakes in the reservoir-triggered seismic (RTS) zone of Koyna–Warna, Western India

Abstract

New empirical relations are derived for source parameters of the Koyna–Warna reservoir-triggered seismic zone in Western India using spectral analysis of 38 local earthquakes in the magnitude range M L 3.5–5.2. The data come from a seismic network operated by the CSIR-National Geophysical Research Institute, India, during March 2005 to April 2012 in this region. The source parameters viz. seismic moment, source radius, corner frequency and stress drop for the various events lie in the range of 1013–1016 Nm, 0.1–0.4 km, 2.9–9.4 Hz and 3–26 MPa, respectively. Linear relationships are obtained among the seismic moment (M 0), local magnitude (M L), moment magnitude (M w), corner frequency (fc) and stress drop (∆σ). The stress drops in the Koyna–Warna region are found to increase with magnitude as well as focal depths of earthquakes. Interestingly, accurate depths derived from moment tensor inversion of earthquake waveforms show a strong correlation with the stress drops, seemingly characteristic of the Koyna–Warna region.