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Spatial distribution of high-frequency spectral decay factor kappa (κ) for Delhi, India

  • Research Article - Solid Earth Sciences
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Abstract

The recorded strong motion data in the Delhi region provide an excellent opportunity to study high-frequency decay parameter, kappa (κ) for the National Capital (Delhi) region and to further understand its implications to study the site effects characterized by different stations within the vicinity of the study region. The kappa values are estimated at 30 locations from 99 accelerograms of 19 earthquakes recorded in the Delhi region and are found to vary from place to place depending upon the controlling parameters, primarily the site characterization. The estimated average values of ‘κ’ lie in the range 0.0118–0.0537 s for the various locations of the region depending upon the source, path, and site characteristics of earthquakes considered in the present study. The distance dependence is found insignificant, while there is a scatter in the variation of κ values with that of magnitude which indicates that κ is more related to the site characteristic for the entire Delhi region which in turn reveals the fact of the basic criterion of the κ parameter. To affirm the total attenuation on the instruments, the site effects demonstrate the behavior of amplification to the geological exposure. It has been found that the various sites under consideration for the study area amplify between 0.6 and 7.0 Hz predominant frequency (\({f}_{\mathrm{peak}}\)) and agree with the geological arrangements of the region. Based on the present study, the most vulnerable areas are the northeastern region of Delhi which lies in proximity to the flood plains of Yamuna river and alluvial deposits of younger origins of the foreland basin along with the southwestern part of Delhi capital which is comprised of the water-saturated alluvial deposits. The estimated ‘κ’ values are found to be correlated with those of the estimated site amplifications and are useful in strong ground motions simulation for the proper evaluation of seismic hazard to build a seismic risk resilient society.

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Availability of data

The data are received from website www.pesmos.in (last accessed July 2018).

Data and resources

Strong motion waveform records used in this study are obtained from www.pesmos.in (last accessed January 2020), a website managed by the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee.

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), India, to sponsor the project, under which the data used in this study were collected. The GMT software from Wessel and Smith (1998) was used in plotting part of the figures and is gratefully acknowledged. The constructive comments from two anonymous reviewer, and editor helped in improving the manuscript.

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  1. National Centre for Seismology, Ministry of Earth Sciences, New Delhi, 110003, India

    Himanshu Mittal & Babita Sharma

  2. Department of Geophysics, Kurukshetra University, Thanesar, India

    Manisha Sandhu & Dinesh Kumar

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  1. Himanshu Mittal
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HM was involved in conceptualization; HM and MS were involved in methodology; HM, BS, and MS were involved in validation; HM was involved in formal analysis; HM, BS, MS, and DK were involved in investigation; HM was involved in resources; HM and MS were involved in data curation; HM, and BS were involved in writing—original draft preparation; HM, BS and DK were involved in writing—review and editing.

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Correspondence to Manisha Sandhu.

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Communicated by Prof. Ramón Zúñiga (CO-EDITOR-IN-CHIEF).

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Mittal, H., Sharma, B., Sandhu, M. et al. Spatial distribution of high-frequency spectral decay factor kappa (κ) for Delhi, India. Acta Geophys. 69, 2113–2127 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11600-021-00674-7

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