Modelling of NW Himalayan Seismicity

Abstract:

The northwest Himalaya is seismicity active region due to the collision of Indian and Eurasian plates and experienced many large earthquakes in past. A systematic analysis of seismicity is useful for seismic hazard estimation of the region. We analyzed the seismicity of northwestern Himalaya since 1980. The magnitude of completeness of the catalogue is carried out using different methods and found as 3.0. A large difference in magnitude of completeness is found using different methods and a reliable value is obtained after testing the distribution of magnitudes with time. The region is prone to large earthquake and many studied have shown that seismic activation or quiescence takes place before large earthquakes. We studied such behavior of seismicity based on Epidemic Type Aftershock Sequence (ETAS) model and found that a stationary ETAS model is more suitable for modelling the seismicity of this region. The earthquake catalogue is de-clustered using stochasting approach to study behavior of background and triggered seismicity. The triggered seismicity is found to have shallower depths as compared to the background events.