Abstract
The Kachchh rift zone of the northwestern India lies near to the India-Arabia and the India-Eurasia plate boundaries, which has experienced many devastating earthquakes in the past, namely the 1819 Allah Bund earthquake, the 1956 Anjar earthquake and the 2001 Bhuj earthquake. These earthquakes claimed the lives of about 17,000 people. To understand the current seismo-tectonic scenario, moment tensor inversion on the broadband data of fourteen Kachchh events of Mw 3.5–4.6 (during 2009–2015) from 5–12 three-component seismograph stations of the National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI), Hyderabad, India was applied. Here deviatoric moment tensor inversion of multiple point sources (10–20s) for regional (or local) earthquakes, developed by Zahradnik et al. (2005) was used. The study reveals that modeled focal mechanisms range between reverse and normal oblique strikeslip while no pure normal dip-slip mechanism is found. However, only four out of fourteen events show oblique normal faulting with a minor strike-slip component. Thus, the modeling proposed in this study suggests that the oblique-reverse strike-slip, reverse and strike-slip type focal mechanisms are found to be dominant in the Kachchh rift zone. This observation indicates that the region is presently under compression.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Aki, K., and Richards, P.G. (1965) Quantitative Seismology, W.H. Freeman, New York.
Antolik, M., and Dreger, D.S. (2003) Rupture process of the 26 January 2001 Mw 7.6 Bhuj, India, earthquake from broadband teleseismic data. Bull. Seismol. Soc. Amer., v.93, pp.1235–1248.
Bilham, R. and England, P. (2001) Pop-up during the great 1897 Assam earthquake. Nature, v.410, pp.806–809.
BIS. (2002) IS 1893 (Part I)-2002 Indian Standard Criteria for Earthquake Resistant Design of Structures, Part I — General Provisions and Buildings, Bureau of Indian Standards, New Delhi.
Biswas, S.K. (1987) Regional tectonic framework, structure, and evolution of the marginal western basins of India. Tectonophysics, v.135, pp.307–327.
Biswas, S.K. (2005) A review of structure and tectonics of Kutch basin, western India, with special reference to earthquakes. Curr. Sci., v.88, pp.1592–1600.
Biswas, S.K., and Khattri, K.N. (2002) A geological study of earthquakes in Kutch, Gujarat, India. Jour. Geol. Soc. India, v.60, pp.131–142.
Bodin, P., and Horton, S. (2004) Source parameters and tectonic implications of aftershocks of the Mw 7.6 Bhuj earthquake of 26 January 2001. Bull. Geol. Soc. Amer., v.94, pp.18–827
Bouchon, M. (1981) A simple method to calculate Green’s functions for layered elastic media. Bull. Seismol. Soc. Amer., v.71, pp.959–971.
Chandrasekhar, D.V. and Mishra, D.C. (2002) Some geodynamic aspects of Kutch basin and seismicity: an insight from gravity studies. Curr. Sci., v.83, pp.492–498.
Chung, W.Y. and Gao, H. (1995) Source parameters of the Anjar earthquake of July 21, 1956, India, and its seismotectonic implications for the Kutch rift basin. Tectonophysics, v.242, pp.281–292.
Cloetingh, S.A.P.L. and Wortel, M.J.R. (1986) Stresses in the Indo-Australian plate. Tectonophysics, v.132, pp.49–67.
Coblentz, D.D., Zhou, S., Hillis, R.H., Richardson, R.M and Sandiford, M. (1998) Topography, boundary forces, and the Indo-Australian intraplate stress field. Jour. Geophys. Res., v.103, pp. 919–931.
Courtillot, V., Besse, J., Vandammne, D., Montigny, R., Jaegar, J.J and Cappetta, H. (1986) Deccan flood basalts at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary? Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., v.80, pp. 361–374.
Coutant, O. (1989) Programme de simulation numerique Axitra. Rappot LGIT, Grenoble.
Dimri, V.P. (1992) Deconvolution and Inverse Theory: Application to Geophysical Problems. Elsevier Science Publishers, Amsterdam, p.230.
Gupta, H.K., Rao, N.P., Rastogi, B.K. and Sarkar, D. (2001a) Bhuj earthquake of 26 January 2001. Jour. Geol. Soc. India, v.57, pp.275–278.
Gupta, H.K., Rao, N.P., Rastogi, B.K. and Sarkar, D. (2001b) The deadliest intraplate earthquake. Science, v.291, pp.2101–2102.
Kayal, J.R., De, R., Ram, S., Srirama, B.V. and Gaonkar, S.G. (2002a) Aftershocks of the 26 January 2001 Bhuj earthquake in western India and its seismotectonicimplications. Jour. Geol. Soc. India, v.59, pp.395–417.
Kayal, J.R., Zhao, D., Mishra, O.P., De, R. and Singh, O.P. (2002b) The 2001 Bhuj earthquake: tomographic evidence for fluids at the hypocenter and its implications for rupture nucleation. Geophys. Res. Lett., v.29(24), pp.2152.
Kikuchi, M. and Kanamori, H. (1991) Inversion of complexbody is waves-III. Bull. Seismol. Soc. Amer., v.81, pp.2335–2350.
Mandal, P. (2007) Sediment thicknesses and Qs vs Qp relations in the Kachchh rift basin, Gujarat, India, using Spconverted phases. Pure Appld. Geophys., v.164, pp.135–160.
Mandal, P. (2009) Estimation of static stress changes after the 2001 Bhuj earthquake: implications towards the northward spatial migration of seismic activity in Kachchh, Gujarat. Jour. Geol. Soc. India, v.74, pp.487–497.
Mandal, P. and Hortion, S. (2007) Relocation of aftershocks, focal mechanisms and stress Inversion: Implications towards the seismo-tectonics of the causative fault zone of Mw 7.6 2001 Bhuj earthquake (India). Tectonophysics, v.429, pp.61–78.
Mandal, P. and Pujol, J. (2006) Seismic imaging of the aftershock zone of the 2001 Mw7.7 Bhuj earthquake. Geophys Res. Lett., v.33(5), pp.1–4.
Mandal, P., Rastogi, B.K., Satyanarayana, H.V.S., Kousalya, M., Vijayraghavan, R., Satyamurthy, C., Raju, I.P., Sarma, A.N.S. and Kumar, N. (2004) Characterization of the causative fault system for the 2001 Bhuj earthquake of Mw 7.7. Tectonophysics, v.378, pp.105–121.
Mishra, O.P. and Zhao, D. (2003) Crack density, saturation rate, and porosity at the 2001 Bhuj, India, earthquake hypocenter: a fluid-driven earthquake? Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., v.212, pp.393–405.
Rajendran, C.P. and Rajendran, K. (2001) Characteristics of Deformation and Past Seismicity Associated with the 1819 Kutch Earthquake. Northwestern India. Bull. Seismol. Soc. Amer., v.91(3), pp.407–426.
Rajendran, C. P., Rajendran, K, Thakkar, M. and Goyal, B. (2008) Assessing the previous activity at the source zone of the 2001 Bhuj earthquake based on the near-source and distant paleoseismological indicators. Jour. Geophys. Res., v.113, pp.1–17.
Rao, N.P. and Chary, H. (2005) What caused the great Sumatran earthquakes of 26 December 2004 and 28 March 2005? Curr. Sci., v.89, pp.449–452.
Rao, N.P. and Kalpana, (2005) Deformation of the subducted Indian lithospheric slab in the Burmese arc. Geophys. Res. Lett., v.32, pp.1–5.
Rao, N.P. and Kumar, M.R. (1997) Uplift and tectonics of shilling Plateau, northeast India. Jour. Physics Earth, v.45(3), pp.167–176.
Rao, Ch.N., Rao, N.P. and Rastogi, B.K. (2013) Evidence for right-lateral strike-slip environment in the Kutch basin of northwestern India from moment tensor inversion studies. Jour. Asian Earth Sci., v.64(5), pp.158–167.
Rao, N.P., Kumar, P., Tsukuda, T., Kalpna, and Ramesh, D.S. (2006) The devastating Muzaffarabad earthquake of 8 October 2005: new insights into Himalayan seismicity and tectonics. Gondwana Res., v.9, pp.365–378.
Rastogi, B.K. (2001) Ground deformation study of Mw 7.7 Bhuj earthquake of 2001. Episodes, v,24(3), pp.160–165.
Rastogi, B.K. (2004) Damage due to the Mw7.7 Kutch, Indian earthquake of 2001. Tectonophysics, v.390, pp.85–103.
Ravishankar and Pande, P. (2001) Geoseismological studies of Kutch (Bhuj) earthquake of 26 January, 2001. Jour. Geol. Soc. India, v.58, pp.203–208.
Sokos, E. and Zahradník, J. (2008) ISOLA a Fortran code and a Matlab GUI to perform multiple-point source inversion of seismic data. Computers and Geosciences, v.34, pp.967–977.
Sokos, E. and Zahradník, J. (2013) Evaluating centroid moment tensor uncertainty in the new Version of ISOLA software. Seismol. Res. Lett., v.84(4), pp.656–665.
Thatcher, W. (2001) Pop-up Disaster. Nature 410, 757–758.
Wessel, P., Smith, W.H.F., 1998. New, improved version of generic mapping tools released. EOS Trans. AGU., v.79, pp. 579.
Zahradnik, J., Serpetsidaki, A., Sokos, E. and Tselentis, G.A. (2005) Iterative Deconvolution of the regional Waveforms and a Double-Event Interpretation of the 2003 Lefkada Earthquake, Greece. Bull. Seismol. Soc. Amer., v.95(1), pp.159–172.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Singh, B., Mandal, P. Moment Tensor Solutions of some Selected Local Events: Implications towards the Present-day Tectonics of the Kachchh Rift zone. J Geol Soc India 91, 158–164 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12594-018-0829-6
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12594-018-0829-6