In the past several years, some energy technologies that inject or extract fluid from the Earth, such as oil and gas development and geothermal energy development, have been found or suspected to cause seismic events, drawing heightened public attention. Although only a very small fraction of injection and extraction activities among the hundreds of thousands of energy development sites in the United States have induced seismicity at levels noticeable to the public, understanding the potential for inducing felt seismic events and for limiting their occurrence and impacts is desirable for state and federal agencies, industry, and the public at large. To better understand, limit, and respond to induced seismic events, work is needed to build robust prediction models, to assess potential hazards, and to help relevant agencies coordinate to address them. Induced Seismicity Potential in Energy Technologies identifies gaps in knowledge and research needed to advance the understanding of induced seismicity; identify gaps in induced seismic hazard assessment methodologies and the research to close those gaps; and assess options for steps toward best practices with regard to energy development and induced seismicity potential.

A workshop on Induced Seismicity was organized during the 27th General Assembly of the International Association of Seismology and Physics of Earth's Interior (IASPEI) in Wellington, New Zealand during January 10-21, 1994. This volume presents a collection of 16 papers accepted for publication which accrued from this workshop. The first three papers address mining activity related to induced seismicity. The fourth paper deals with water injection induced seismic activity, while the remaining 12 papers treat several aspects of water reservoir induced earthquakes. Globally, the Koyna dam creating Shivajisagar Lake in Maharashtra, India, continues to be the most significant site of reservoir-induced earthquakes. With the increase in the number of cases of induced seismicity, there is a growing concern among planners, engineers, geophysicists and geologists to understand the environment conducive to this phenomenon. While the changes in pore-fluid pressure have been identified as the key factor in inducing earthquakes, the phenomenon itself is still poorly understood. This reality thus makes the study of the induced seismicity very important and this volume timely.

This volume contains 18 papers from 8 countries dealing with different aspects of triggered and induced seismicity. In situ observations of the phenomenon include examples of seismicity due to reservoirs, hard-rock mines, coal mines, mine collapses, brine production caverns, fluid injections, and geothermal hot-dry-rock projects. High-frequency acoustic emission studies from laboratory experiments and hard-rock mines have also been reported. Besides providing case studies of previously unavailable observations of seismicity, the present volume contains investigations of the causes and source mechanism of seismic events, determination of source parameters, seismic hazard as related to the design of support systems for underground openings and procedures for closure of brine production caverns, and the use of seismic and non-destructive techniques in assessing rock damage, measuring dynamic elastic moduli and detecting discontinuities. This collection of papers provides an excellent indication of the state of the art, recent developments and outstanding challenges facing scientists and engineers in understanding the causes and alleviating the effects of induced seismicity.

Since the publication of the first Dams and Earthquakes in 1976, the phenomenon of reservoir induced seismicity (RIS) is more widely understood. There are now over 70 known cases of reservoir-induced earthquakes. These damaging earthquakes have occurred in China, Kariba, Zambia, Greece, Kremasta, Koyna, India, California and elsewhere. The December 10, 1967 Koyna earthquake, with a magnitude of 6.3 claimed over 200 lives, injured 1500 and rendered thousands homeless. Because of the ever increasing demand for dam construction, for power generation, irrigation, and flood control, it is necessary to understand how, where and why induced earthquakes occur. Recent research has demonstrated that when suitable physical measurements of rock properties are made, a fairly accurate model of induced seismicity can be obtained. It appears possible to mitigate the hazard of RIS through manipulation of reservoir levels. The present volume is an updated and revised follow-up to the 1976 book. It presents an overview of the world-wide distribution of RIS, the salient aspects of RIS at specific reservior sites where earthquakes of M⟩5 have occurred and where new results on RIS are reported, and how they differ from the normal earthquake sequences. An examination of the non-occurrence of induced earthquakes in the vicinity of the Himalyan reservoirs and other related topics such as: the size of the largest induced earthquake that could occur at a given reservoir site; prediction of induced earthquakes; and dam site investigations which should be completed during the planning and operation of the reservoirs are also included.

The perturbation of the earth by mankind causes earthquakes in a variety of situations. This phenomenon continues to be a major concern to engineers and scientists concerned with the mitigation of the consequences of this seismicity, as well as better understanding the processes at its origin. The present volume contains twelve papers from six countries, dealing with observations of triggered and induced seismicity in four continents. The reported cases include seismicity due to hard-rock mines, coal mines, underground research facilities for nuclear waste disposal, water injections, reservoirs, acquifers and oil fields. This volume provides case studies of previously unavailable observations of this phenomenon, investigations of the cause and source mechanism of seismic events, studies of source location distributions, determinations of seismic source parameters, cases of the use of such parameters in assessing rockburst hazard in mines, and measurements of velocity an attenuation properties of rock masses. The present collection of papers provides an excellent indication of the current state of the art and new developments in this area of research.

There are few books and long review articles on water reservoir induced seismicity, mining induced seismicity and even on volcanic seismicity but the subjects of induced seismicity following fluid extraction and nuclear explosion and seismicity associated with tidal stress in Earth have not received significant attention though there are research papers in relevant literature. Thus an attempt has been made to discuss all the known forms of induced seismicity in the present book and to bring out common features of the different phenomena causing induced seismicity. The book has six main chapters namely 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7, the first and last chapters, namely 1 and 8 being introduction and overview of all forms of induced seismicity. Material in Chapters 2 and 3 is rather recent though water reservoirs and petroleum extraction processes have been in existence over many decades. But, literature on chapters 4 and 5 is available since last one century or so as volcanic process and mining operation affect nearby human habitation and mining severely due to induced seismicity associated with mining in particular. However, literature on possible induced seismicity due to tidal stress is fairly old, the same following nuclear explosion is naturally recent.