A reservoir induced earthquake swarm in the Central Highlands of Sri Lanka.

ABSTRACT: An anomalous seismic sequence of five small (M_W < 3) felt earthquakes occurred between 29 August 2020 and 05 December 2020 around the Victoria Reservoir in the central highlands of Sri Lanka that clearly exceeded the established national background seismic rate. Using seismic waveform template-matching and a newly developed single-station earthquake location method based on travel-time back-projection, we detected an additional co-located 23 microseismic events, of which 18 occurred within the same period as the felt events. This hitherto undetected seismic swarm defines a seismogenic zone beneath the western flank of the reservoir between 1.5 and 3 km depths. The reservoir-induced peak stresses, resolved on E-W striking faults, predicted from the poroelastic theory that include

SUBMITTER: Herath P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9617912 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature