RTSeismo: A new Matlab based Graphical User Interface tool for analysing triggered seismicity due to surface reservoir impoundment

Abstract

One of the main causes of Human-induced earthquakes is hydroelectric reservoir impoundment, a phenomenon known as Reservoir Triggered Seismicity (RTS). To assess the role of reservoir impoundment in triggering seismicity of a region, several codes are written in MATLAB based on Green’s function solution of poroelastic equations to simulate stress, pore pressure and change in fault stability. All these codes are embedded into a single user-friendly application software. This application takes various inputs on reservoir dimensions, reservoir loading time history, fault orientation, poroelastic properties of the medium for calculations, and presents results in simple graphics.