Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

A local magnitude scale ML for the Saurashtra horst: An active intraplate region, Gujarat, India

  • Published:
Journal of Earth System Science Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The calibration of local magnitude scale to local tectonics is essential for seismic hazard assessment and quantifying the seismicity in active regions. In the present study, we have developed a local magnitude scale ML, for the Saurashtra region, which is a horst, located in the western continental margin of India. The local magnitude scale is developed using 1968 amplitude measurements from horizontal component recordings of 319 earthquakes, obtained from sites in the Saurashtra region, with hypocentral distances ranging from 3 to 298 km. All the 1968 amplitude measurements were inverted simultaneously to determine attenuation curve, magnitudes and station corrections for the studied region. The resultant distance correction term for the Saurashtra is −log(A0) = 1.31 log(r/100) + 0.0002 (r − 100) + 3 for 100 km normalization, where A0 is the distance correction and r is the hypocentral distance. The distance correction term (−log A0) suggests that the attenuation in the Saurashtra region is lower as compared to neighbouring Kachchh region. The station corrections obtained in the present study varies from −0.31 to +0.24. Overall, standard deviation of the magnitude residuals without station correction is 0.28, while with station correction, it is 0.23, which indicates that applying station correction reduces the variance by 31% and brings the average residual closer to zero.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
Figure 4
Figure 5
Figure 6
Figure 7

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Alsaker A, Kvamme L B, Hansen R A, Dahle A and Bungum H 1991 The ML scale in Norway; Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 81 379–398.

    Google Scholar 

  • Askari R, Ghods A and Sobouti F 2009 Calibration of an ml scale in the Alborz region, northern Iran; Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 99 268–276.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baba A B, Papadimitriou E E, Papazachos B C, Papaioannou C A and Karakostas B G 2000 Unified local magnitude scale for earthquakes of south Balkan area; Pure Appl. Geophys. 157 765–783.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bakun W H and Joyner W B 1984 The ml scale in central California; Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 74 1827–1843.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baruah S, Baruah S, Bora P K, Duarah R, Kalita A, Biswas R, Gogoi N and Kayal J R 2012 Moment magnitude (Mw) and local magnitude (ML) relationship for earthquakes in northeast India; Pure Appl. Geophys. 169 1977–1988.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bhattacharya S N, Karanth R V, Dattatrayam R S and Sohoni P S 2004 Earthquake sequence in and around Bhavnagar, Saurashtra, western India during August–December 2000 and associated tectonic features; Curr. Sci. 86 1165–1170.

    Google Scholar 

  • Biswas S K 1987 Regional tectonic framework, structure and evolution of the western marginal basins of India; Tectonophys. 135 307–327.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Biswas S K 2005 Intraplate seismicity: A review of structure and tectonics of Kutch basin, western India, with special reference to earthquakes; Curr. Sci. 88 1592–1600.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bormann P 2002 New manual of IASPEI seismological observatory practice; In: New Manual of IASPEI Seismological Observatory Practice (NMSOPM), pp. 16–50.

  • Brazier R, Miao Q, Nyblade A, Langston C and Ayele A 2005 Local magnitude scale and seismicity for Ethiopia, east Africa; AGU Fall Meet Abstr.

  • Brazier R A, Miao Q, Nyblade A A, Ayele A and Langston C A 2008 Local magnitude scale for the Ethiopian plateau; Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 98 2341–2348.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chopra S, Madhusudhan Rao K, Sairam B, Kumar S, Gupta A K, Patel H, Gadhavi M S, Rastogi B and Chopra K 2008a Earthquake swarm activities after rains in peninsular India and a case study from Jamnagar; J. Geol. Soc. India 72 245–252.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chopra S, Yadav R B S, Patel H, Kumar S, Rao K M, Rastogi B K, Hameed A and Srivastava S 2008b The Gujarat (India) seismic network; Seismol. Res. Lett. 79 806–815.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Havskov J and Ottemoller L 2003 The earthquake analysis softwares for windows, solaris and linux, version 8.0; In: Institute of Solid Earth Physics, University of Bergen, Norway.

  • Hutton L K and Boore D M 1987 The ml scale in southern California; Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 77 2074–2094.

    Google Scholar 

  • Illsley-Kemp F, Keir D, Bull J M, Ayele A, Hammond J O S, Kendall J M, Gallacher R J, Gernon T and Goitom B 2017 Local earthquake magnitude scale and b-value for the Danakil region of northern Afar; Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 107 521–531.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • IS:1893–Part 1 2002 Indian standard criteria for earthquake resistant design of structures. Part 1: General provisions and buildings; Bureau Indian Standards, New Delhi, India, 1893.

  • Joshi V, Chopra S and Kumar S 2019 A local magnitude scale (ML) for the Kachchh rift basin: An active intraplate region, Gujarat, India; Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 109 34–42.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Joshi V, Chopra S, Mahesh P and Kumar S 2017 Joint modeling of velocity structure and hypocentral locations in the seismically active Kachchh, Saurashtra, and Narmada regions of western India: An active intraplate region; Seismol. Res. Lett. 88 1390–1402.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Keir D, Stuart G W, Jackson A and Ayele A 2006 Local earthquake magnitude scale and seismicity rate for the Ethiopian rift; Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 96 2221–2230.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kilic T, Ottemoller L, Havskov J, Yanık K, Kilicarslan, Alver F and Ozyazıcıoglu M 2017 Local magnitude scale for earthquakes in Turkey; J. Seismol. 21 35–46.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Langston C A, Brazier R, Nyblade A A and Owens T J 1998 Local magnitude scale and seismicity rate for Tanzania, East Africa; Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 88(3) 712–721.

    Google Scholar 

  • McKenzie D and Sclater J 1971 The evolution of the Indian ocean since the last cretaceous; Geophys. J. R. Astron. Soc. 24 437–528.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nguyen L M, Lin T L, Wu Y M, Huang B S, Chang C H, Huang W G, Le T S and Dinh V T 2011 The first ml scale for north of Vietnam; J. Asian Earth Sci. 40 279–286.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ortega R and Quintanar L 2005 A study of the local magnitude scale in the basin of Mexico: Mutually consistent estimates of log a0 and ground-motion scaling; pubs.geoscienceworld.org 95(2) 605–613.

  • Ottemoller L and Sargeant S 2013 A local magnitude scale ml for the United Kingdom; Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 103 2884–2893.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ottemoller L, Voss P and Havskov J 2011 Seisan earthquake analysis software for windows, solaris, linux and macosx; ver. 9.0.1.

  • Press W, Flannery B, Teukolsky S and Vetterling W 2003 Numerical Recipes in Fortran 77: The Art of Scientific Computing.

  • Rajendran C P and Rajendran K 2001 Characteristics of deformation and past seismicity associated with the 1819 Kutch earthquake, north western India; Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 91 407–426.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rastogi B K, Aggrawal S K, Rao N and Choudhury P 2013 Triggered/migrated seismicity due to the 2001 Mw 7.7 Bhuj earthquake, western India; Nat. Hazards 65 1085–1107.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Richter C F 1935 An instrumental earthquake magnitude scale; Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 25 1–32.

    Google Scholar 

  • Richter C F 1958 Elementary Seismology; W. H. Free. Co., San Fr. 768.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ristau J 2009 Comparison of magnitude estimates for New Zealand earthquakes: Moment magnitude, local magnitude, and teleseismic body-wave magnitude; Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 99 1841–1852.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Saunders I, Ottemöller L, Brandt M B C and Fourie C J S 2013 Calibration of an ML scale for South Africa using tectonic earthquake data recorded by the South African National seismograph network: 2006 to 2009; J. Seismol. 17 437–451.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sharma B, Kumar D, Teotia S S, Rastogi B K, Gupta A K and Prajapati S 2012 Attenuation of coda waves in the Saurashtra region, Gujarat (India); Pure Appl. Geophys. 169 89–100.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shoja-Taheri J, Naserieh S and Ghafoorian-Nasab A H 2008 An ML scale in northeastern Iran; Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 98 1975–1982.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shoja-Taheri J, Naserieh S and Ghofrani H 2007 ML and Mw scales in the Iranian plateau based on the strong-motion records; Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 97 661–669.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Singh A P, Kumar M R, Kumar S, Sateesh A, Mahesh P, Shukla A and Talukdar R 2017 Seismicity and subterranean sounds in the northwest Deccan volcanic province of India; Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 107 1129–1135.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Surya Prakasa Rao G and Tewari H C 2005 The seismic structure of the Saurashtra crust in northwest India and its relationship with the Réunion plume; Geophys. J. Int. 160 318–330.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The authors are thankful to the Director General, Institute of Seismological Research, Gandhinagar, for permission to publish the paper. Digital broadband waveform data are recorded by the permanent observatories of the Institute of Seismological Research (ISR), Gandhinagar (Gujarat), India. The authors wish to thank Department of Science and Technology, Government of Gujarat and Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India for supporting the GSNet. The authors are also thankful to corresponding Editor N V Chalapathi Rao and anonymous reviewers for providing valuable comments to improve the quality of the article.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Seismological Research, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, 382 009, India

    Vishwa Joshi, Sumer Chopra & Santosh Kumar

  2. Gujarat University, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, 380 009, India

    Vishwa Joshi

Authors
  1. Vishwa Joshi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Sumer Chopra
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Santosh Kumar
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Vishwa Joshi.

Additional information

Communicated by N V Chalapathi Rao

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Joshi, V., Chopra, S. & Kumar, S. A local magnitude scale ML for the Saurashtra horst: An active intraplate region, Gujarat, India. J Earth Syst Sci 129, 114 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12040-020-1379-z

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12040-020-1379-z

Keywords

Search

Navigation