There are many ways in which induced seismicity has been seen to occur. In the 2010s, some energy technologies that inject or extract fluid from the
Earth, such as oil and gas extraction and geothermal energy development, have been found or suspected to cause seismic events. Some energy technologies also produce wastes that may be managed through disposal or storage by injection deep into the ground. For example, waste water from oil and gas production and
carbon dioxide from a variety of industrial processes may be managed through underground injection.
Artificial lakes The column of water in a large and deep
artificial lake alters in-situ stress along an existing fault or fracture. In these reservoirs, the weight of the water column can significantly change the stress on an underlying fault or fracture by increasing the total stress through direct loading, or decreasing the effective stress through the increased pore water pressure. This significant change in stress can lead to sudden movement along the fault or fracture, resulting in an earthquake. Reservoir-induced seismic events can be relatively large compared to other forms of induced seismicity. Though understanding of reservoir-induced seismic activity is very limited, it has been noted that seismicity appears to occur on dams with heights larger than . The extra water pressure created by large reservoirs is the most accepted explanation for the seismic activity. When the reservoirs are filled or drained, induced seismicity can occur immediately or with a small time lag. The first case of reservoir-induced seismicity occurred in 1932 in Algeria's
Oued Fodda Dam. The 6.3 magnitude
1967 Koynanagar earthquake occurred in
Maharashtra,
India with its
epicenter,
fore- and
aftershocks all located near or under the
Koyna Dam reservoir. 180 people died and 1,500 were left injured. The effects of the earthquake were felt away in Bombay with tremors and power outages. During the beginnings of the
Vajont Dam in Italy, there were seismic shocks recorded during its initial fill. After a landslide almost filled the reservoir in 1963, causing a massive flooding and around 2,000 deaths, it was drained and consequently seismic activity was almost non-existent. On August 1, 1975, a magnitude 6.1 earthquake at
Oroville,
California, was attributed to seismicity from a large earth-fill
dam and
reservoir recently constructed and filled. The filling of the
Katse Dam in
Lesotho, and the
Nurek Dam in
Tajikistan is an example. In
Zambia,
Kariba Lake may have provoked similar effects. The
2008 Sichuan earthquake, which caused approximately 68,000 deaths, is another possible example. An article in
Science suggested that the construction and filling of the
Zipingpu Dam may have triggered the earthquake. Some experts worry that the
Three Gorges Dam in
China may cause an increase in the frequency and intensity of earthquakes.
Mining Mining affects the
stress state of the surrounding rock mass, often causing observable
deformation and
seismic activity. A small portion of mining-induced events are associated with damage to mine workings and pose a risk to mine workers. These events are known as
rock bursts in
hard rock mining, or as
bumps in
underground coal mining. A mine's propensity to burst or bump depends primarily on depth, mining method, extraction sequence and geometry, and the material properties of the surrounding rock. Many underground hardrock mines operate seismic monitoring networks in order to manage bursting risks, and guide mining practices. Seismic networks have recorded a variety of mining-related seismic sources including: • Shear slip events (similar to
tectonic earthquakes) which are thought to have been triggered by mining activity. Notable examples include the 1980 Bełchatów earthquake and the
2014 Orkney earthquake. • Implosional events associated with mine collapses. The
2007 Crandall Canyon mine collapse and the Solvay Mine Collapse are examples of these. • Explosions associated with routine mining practices, such as
drilling and blasting, and unintended explosions such as the
Sago mine Disaster. Explosions are generally not considered "induced" events since they are caused entirely by chemical payloads. Most earthquake monitoring agencies take careful measures to identify explosions and exclude them from earthquake catalogs. •
Fracture formation near the surface of excavations, which are usually small magnitude events only detected by dense in-mine networks.
Waste disposal wells Injecting liquids into waste disposal wells, most commonly in disposing of
produced water from oil and natural gas wells, has been known to cause earthquakes. This high-saline water is usually pumped into salt water disposal (SWD) wells. The resulting increase in subsurface pore pressure can trigger movement along faults, resulting in earthquakes. One of the first known examples was from the
Rocky Mountain Arsenal, northeast of
Denver. In 1961, waste water was injected into deep strata, and this was later found to have caused a series of earthquakes. The
2011 Oklahoma earthquake near
Prague, of magnitude 5.8, occurred after 20 years of injecting waste water into porous deep formations at increasing pressures and saturation. On September 3, 2016, an even stronger earthquake with a magnitude of 5.8 occurred near
Pawnee, Oklahoma, followed by nine aftershocks between magnitudes 2.6 and 3.6 within hours. Tremors were felt as far away as
Memphis, Tennessee, and
Gilbert, Arizona.
Mary Fallin, the Oklahoma governor, declared a local emergency and shutdown orders for local disposal wells were ordered by the Oklahoma Corporation Commission. Results of ongoing multi-year research on induced earthquakes by the
United States Geological Survey (USGS) published in 2015 suggested that most of the significant earthquakes in Oklahoma, such as the 1952 magnitude 5.5 El Reno earthquake may have been induced by deep injection of waste water by the oil industry. Prior to April 2015 however, the Oklahoma Geological Survey's position was that the quake was most likely due to natural causes and was not triggered by waste injection. This was
one of many earthquakes which have affected the Oklahoma region. Since 2009, earthquakes have become hundreds of times more common in Oklahoma with magnitude 3 events increasing from 1 or 2 per year to 1 or 2 per day. On April 21, 2015, the Oklahoma Geological Survey released a statement reversing its stance on induced earthquakes in Oklahoma: "The OGS considers it very likely that the majority of recent earthquakes, particularly those in central and north-central Oklahoma, are triggered by the injection of produced water in disposal wells."
Hydrocarbon extraction and storage Large-scale fossil fuel extraction can generate earthquakes. Induced seismicity can be also related to underground gas storage operations. The 2013 September–October seismic sequence occurred 21 km off the coast of the Valencia Gulf (Spain) is probably the best known case of induced seismicity related to Underground Gas Storage operations (the Castor Project). In September 2013, after the injection operations started, the Spanish seismic network recorded a sudden increase of seismicity. More than 1,000 events with magnitudes () between 0.7 and 4.3 (the largest earthquake ever associated with gas storage operations) and located close the injection platform were recorded in about 40 days. Due to the significant population concern the Spanish Government halted the operations. By the end of 2014, the Spanish government definitively terminated the concession of the UGS plant. Since January 2015 about 20 people who took part in the transaction and approval of the Castor Project were indicted.
Groundwater extraction The changes in crustal stress patterns caused by the large scale extraction of groundwater has been shown to trigger earthquakes, as in the case of the
2011 Lorca earthquake.
Geothermal energy Enhanced geothermal systems (EGS), a new type of
geothermal power technology that does not require natural convective hydrothermal resources, are known to be associated with induced seismicity. EGS involves pumping fluids at pressure to enhance or create permeability through the use of hydraulic fracturing techniques. Hot dry rock (HDR) EGS actively creates geothermal resources through hydraulic stimulation. Depending on the rock properties, and on injection pressures and fluid volume, the reservoir rock may respond with tensile failure, as is common in the oil and gas industry, or with shear failure of the rock's existing joint set, as is thought to be the main mechanism of reservoir growth in EGS efforts. HDR and EGS systems are currently being developed and tested in Soultz-sous-Forêts (France), Desert Peak and
the Geysers (U.S.), Landau (Germany), and Paralana and Cooper Basin (Australia). Induced seismicity events at the Geysers geothermal field in California has been strongly correlated with injection data. The test site at Basel, Switzerland, has been shut down due to induced seismic events. In November 2017 a Mw 5.5 struck the city of Pohang (South Korea) injuring several people and causing extensive damage. The proximity of the seismic sequence to an EGS site, where stimulation operations had taken place only a few months before the earthquake, raised the possibility that this earthquake had been anthropogenic. According to two different studies it seems plausible that the
Pohang earthquake was induced by EGS operations. Researchers at MIT believe that seismicity associated with hydraulic stimulation can be mitigated and controlled through predictive siting and other techniques. With appropriate management, the number and magnitude of induced seismic events can be decreased, significantly reducing the probability of a damaging seismic event.
Induced seismicity in Basel led to suspension of its HDR project. A seismic hazard evaluation was then conducted, which resulted in the cancellation of the project in December 2009.
Hydraulic fracturing Hydraulic fracturing is a technique in which high-pressure fluid is injected into low-permeability reservoir rocks in order to induce fractures to increase
hydrocarbon production. This process is generally associated with
seismic events that are too small to be felt at the surface (with moment
magnitudes ranging from −3 to 1), although larger magnitude events are not excluded. For example, several cases of larger magnitude events (M > 4) have been recorded in Canada in the
unconventional resources of
Alberta and
British Columbia.
Carbon capture and storage Risk analysis Operation of technologies involving long-term geologic storage of waste fluids have been shown to induce seismic activity in nearby areas, and correlation of periods of seismic dormancy with minima in injection volumes and pressures has even been demonstrated for fracking wastewater injection in Youngstown, Ohio. Of particular concern to the viability of carbon dioxide storage from coal-fired power plants and similar endeavors is that the scale of intended CCS projects is much larger in both injection rate and total injection volume than any current or past operation that has already been shown to induce seismicity. As such, extensive modeling must be done of future injection sites in order to assess the risk potential of CCS operations, particularly in relation to the effect of long-term carbon dioxide storage on shale caprock integrity, as the potential for fluid leaks to the surface might be quite high for moderate earthquakes.
Monitoring Since geological
sequestration of carbon dioxide has the potential to induce seismicity, researchers have developed methods to monitor and model the risk of injection-induced seismicity in order to manage better the risks associated with this phenomenon. Monitoring can be conducted with measurements from an instrument such as a
geophone to measure the movement of the ground. Generally a network of instruments is used around the site of injection, although many current carbon dioxide injection sites use no monitoring devices. Modelling is an important technique for assessing the potential for induced seismicity and two primary models are used: Physical and numerical. A physical model uses measurements from the early stages of a project to forecast how the project will behave once more carbon dioxide is injected. A numerical model, on the other hand, uses numerical methods to simulate the physics of what is happening within the reservoir. Both modelling and monitoring are useful tools whereby to quantify, understand better and mitigate the risks associated with injection-induced seismicity. Most generally, failure will happen on existing faults due to several mechanisms: an increase in shear stress, a decrease in normal stress or a
pore pressure increase. When \tau_c is attained, shear failure occurs and an earthquake can be felt. This process can be represented graphically on a
Mohr's circle. There have actually not been any major seismic events associated with carbon injection at this point, whereas there have been recorded seismic occurrences caused by the other injection methods. One such example is massively increased induced seismicity in Oklahoma, USA caused by injection of huge volumes of wastewater into the Arbuckle Group
sedimentary rock.
Electromagnetic pulses It has been shown that high-energy
electromagnetic pulses can trigger the release of energy stored by tectonic movements by increasing the rate of local earthquakes, within 2–6 days after the emission by the EMP generators. The energy released is approximately six orders of magnitude larger than the EM pulses energy. The release of tectonic stress by these relatively small triggered earthquakes equals to 1-17% of the stress released by a strong earthquake in the area. It has been proposed that strong EM impacts could control seismicity as during the periods of the experiments and long time after, the seismicity dynamics were a lot more regular than usual. == Risk analysis ==