A discussion on the influences of Zipingpu reservoir on the stability of faults in the neighborhood
紫坪铺水库对附近断层稳定性影响的探讨

Whether the Zipingpu reservoir triggered the 5.12 earthquake has attracted international attention. We discuss influences of the artificial load on stability of faults in the vicinity based on the solution of Boussinesq’s problem with the consideration of geometry of the reservoir and real water depth. The results indicate that the static Coulomb stress changes obviously near the surface and its magnitude can be 0.2MPa, but decreases rapidly with distance. The seismic source of the 5.12 earthquake was in the field where the static Coulomb stress changes are positive. However, the magnitude of about 0.005MPa is too small because of the remoteness from the reservoir. We also discuss the distribution of the static Coulomb stress caused by point load on some typical faults.