Acta Geophysica

vol. 57, no. 2, pp. 387-399 DOI: 10.2478/s11600-008-0068-0

Basab MUKHOPADHYAY, Anshuman ACHARYYA, and Sujit DASGUPTA

Tectonism in the Himalayan fold-thrust belt had generated great earthquakes in the past and will spawn more in the future. Sequential cumulative moment release data of macroearthquakes (Mb 4.5) over the years 1964-2006 in four zones of the Himalaya was analysed by nonparametric RUD method. The Z values of RUD analysis had neither rejected nor supported the null hypothesis of randomness. However, the Hurst analysis and plot, a statistical procedure to identify clustering of low and high values in a time series, brought out a pattern for earthquake prognostication. The pattern was a negative sloping segment representing a sluggish moment release over years, followed by a positive sloping segment indicating a sudden high moment release with occurrence of medium/large size earthquake(s). In recent past, such a negative sloping has been found in Zones B (1992-2006) and D (1998-2006), indicating an impending moderate/mega earthquake event in near future. Key words: Himalaya, seismic moment, time series, Hurst plot.

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1. INTRODUCTION

Himalayan fold-thrust belt has been revisited by large to medium size earthquakes over decades. The ongoing tectonic movement is likely to cause many future quakes as a result of differential convergence rate from west to
________________________________________________ 2009 Institute of Geophysics, Polish Academy of Sciences

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Abstract

Geological Survey of India, Central Headquarters, Kolkata, India e-mails: basabmukhopadhyay@yahoo.com (corresponding author), anshuman_cal@yahoo.com, sujitdasgupta@yahoo.com

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Statistical Analysis on Yearly Seismic Moment Release Data to Demarcate the Source Zone for an Impending Earthquake in the Himalaya

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east between Indian and Eurasian Plates. Variable shortening of crust along the strike length of the Himalayan arc manifests such a convergence. The shortening rate measured by systematic GPS studies from western to eastern Himalaya varies considerably, from 13.4 to 19 mm/yr (cf., Banerjee and Burgmann 2002, Chen et al. 2004, Bettinelli et al. 2006, Feldl and Bilham 2006, Jade et al. 2007). This shortening of crust in the Himalaya is absorbing a large fraction of variable plate motion, 32 to 36.4 mm/yr from western to eastern part of Indian subcontinent, between India and Eurasia (Bettinelli et al. 2006). Differential shortening rates across the Himalayan arc result into locking of the basement thrust (Main Himalayan Thrust, MHT) (Zhao et al. 1993, Nelson et al. 1996, Hauck et al. 1998, Bettinelli et al. 2006). This locking generates elastic strain and resultant earthquake in foreland part of the Himalaya. However, the average geodetic convergence rate of 18 mm/yr is lower than the average geological slip of 21.51.5 mm/yr measured over the Holocene period in the central Nepal Himalaya (Lave and Avouac 2000). From the slip deficit, moment release pattern, seismic gap, and GPS campaign data on either side of active tectonic zones, various workers have prognosticated future large earthquakes in different parts of the Himalayan arc. From the accumulated slip deficit, Bilham and Ambraseys (2005) and Bilham and Wallace (2005) have predicted four 8.6 magnitude earthquakes in entire length of the Himalaya. Similarly, Bollinger et al. (2004) has forecasted a major earthquake along the seismic gap between Kathmandu, Nepal and Dehra Dun, India. Again, from the seismic gap area between the rupture zones of Kangra earthquake of 1905 and Bihar Nepal earthquake of 1934, aided by GPS data, Bettinelli et al. (2006) has guessed two M > 8 or even larger events west of Kathmandu in the Nepal Himalaya. Feldl and Bilham (2006) have speculated Mw > 8.6 earthquakes with rupture length of approximately 400 km in the western and central Himalaya, and eastern Nepal seismic gaps. The slip deficit generated over decades coupled with differential shortening rate may likely cause one larger-to-great earthquake, sometimes soon or not too far in time. But where, when and how large the size of the hazard is anybodys guess. The decadal convergence along the Himalayan arc has accumulated elastic strain that is bound to release by seismic or as aseismic slip between earthquakes (Bilham and Ambraseys 2005). In this article, the yearly cumulative moment release data from 1964 to 2006 by known macroearthquakes (Mb 4.5) in different zones of the Himalaya has been subjected to RUD (Runs Up and Down) analysis and Hurst analysis in an attempt to identify a characteristic pattern on moment release. The identified pattern was then used to locate source zone(s) for a next impending major shock in the Himalaya. It is known that Hurst statistics and plots provide means to determine

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the degree of clustering between low and high values in a time series. This rescaled range analysis (Feder 1988) has been applied in sedimentological studies (Chen and Hiscott 1999, Mukhopadhyay et al. 2003), several environmental quantities such as wind power variations (Haslett and Raftery 1989), hydrologic studies (Hurst 1951, 1956, Wallis and Matalas 1970, 1971) and climatic changes (Evans 1996, Koutsoyiannis 2003) to quantify clustering in datasets. But this methodology has never been used for pattern recognition on yearly earthquake moment release data, which will be demonstrated in the following sections.
2. DATA

The earthquake data (Mb 4.5) from ISC (1964-2003) and NEIC catalogues (2004 June 2006) from Main Frontal Thrust (MFT) in the south, followed

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Fig. 1. Plot of earthquake data (Mb 4.5) in the Himalaya for 1964-2006. Note boundaries of zones A, B, C and D in gray, where further analysis is carried out. Zone A Western Himalaya, B Western Nepal Himalaya, C Eastern Nepal Himalaya, and D Northeast Himalaya. Note also the active tectonic surfaces in the Himalaya: MFT Main Frontal Thrust, MBT Main Boundary Thrust, MCT Main Central Thrust, ITS IndusTsangpo Suture. The faults from Peninsular India in interaction with the Himalayan Thrusts: RF Ropar Fault, MDF MahendragarhDehradun Fault, GBF Great Boundary Fault, WPF West-Patna Fault, EPF East-Patna Fault, MSRMF Munger Saharsha Ridge Marginal Fault, and MKF Malda-Kishanganj Fault. Jam Jammu, Si Simla, Le Leh, Dd Dehra Dun, Nd New Delhi, Jai Jaipur, All Allahabad, Sh Shillong.

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11 2

M 0 = A u ,

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successively in the north by Main Boundary Thrust (MBT) and Main Central Thrust (MCT) to IndusTsangpo Suture (ITS) has been utilized for the study. Earthquake events are plotted on a generalized tectonic map of the area (Fig. 1). To account for the spatial variation of seismicity and corresponding seismotectonic parameters of the Himalaya, the area is subdivided into four zones, A, B, C and D, respectively, from west to east, within the MFT and ITS bounded seismic zone. The earthquake events within these four zones have been separated out into four sub-catalogues for further analyses. Zone A is named the Western Himalaya, B the Western Nepal Himalaya, C the Eastern Nepal Himalaya, and finally D the Northeast Himalaya (Fig. 1). Seismic moment is a second rank tensor with a scalar value M0 and the two directions define the slip and fault orientations (Scholz 2002). The latter geometrical information is called focal mechanism or fault plane solution. Seismic moment is related to properties of the earths crust and that of the faulting process by where is the shear rigidity (310 dyne/cm ) of the crust, A is the area of the entire ruptured surface, and u is the rupture displacement averaged over the ruptured surface (Scholz 2002, McGuire 2004). The moment M0 (in

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Fig. 2. Plot of log-cumulative moment release for successive years (1964-2006) for four zones, A to D. Note the number of earthquakes with Mb 4.5 as labels. Zero value in cumulative moment release data indicates absence of earthquake (Mb 4.5) in that particular year.

(1)

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dynecm) for individual earthquake event with magnitude m is given by the equation
log M 0 = c m + d ,
(2)

3.

CUMULATIVE MOMENT RELEASE PATTERN OF SUCCESSIVE YEARS RANDOM OR SYSTEMATIC?

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=

A series of continuously measured cumulative moments of successive years can be treated mathematically as a time series. To identify the pattern in a time series, a number of statistical calculation methods has been devised, the RUD (Runs Up and Down) being one of them (Davis 2002, Chakraborty et al. 2002). This test not only verifies the randomness in the data but also identifies the presence and absence of a local trend (either increase or decrease on moment release pattern in successive years). In RUD, the dataset is coded by +1, 0 or 1 by comparing the cumulative moment release of one year with the successive year. If the cumulative moment is higher than the previous one, then +1 is noted. Alternately, if the cumulative moment is lower, then 1 is recorded. If both cumulative moments are equal, then 0 is registered. Runs U are defined as uninterrupted sequence of same state (+1 or 1). In a dataset, the number of positive runs (+1) is n1 and the number of negative runs (1) is n2 , so the expected mean number of runs in a randomly generated sequence is (Davis 2002):

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2n1n2 +1 n1 + n2

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and the expected variance in the mean number of runs is

2 =
2n1n2 (2n1n2 n1 n2 ) . (n1 + n2 )2 ( n1 + n2 1)
(4)

A cumulative moment sequence of successive years may yield either an increasing moment release pattern or a decreasing moment release pattern in successive years for which a two-tailed test is appropriate with a null hypothesis that presumes a random distribution of cumulative moments. Alternately, failure of the hypothesis yields the presence of asymmetric cycles. For testing, the Z statistic has been employed,

where c = 1.5 and d = 16.05 (Hanks and Kanamori 1979, McGuire 2004). The moments log M0 for individual earthquake events within the four subcatalogues (A, B, C and D) are calculated by eq. (2). The cumulative log M0 for the period starting from 1964 to June 2006 are calculated for sub-catalogues of Zones A, B, C and D and summarized graphically in Fig. 2. The moment release data shown in the diagrams display peaks and drops, without any visible cyclic pattern.

(3)

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Z = (U ) / ,

(5)

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Zone A Zone B 43 19 23 21.8095 3.1708 19 0.8860 43 20 22 21.952 3.1931 16 1.8640

where U is the total number of runs. Z is normally distributed with mean 0 and standard deviation 1 and lies between +1.96 and 1.96 (for = 0.05) for random sequence following the null hypothesis; any other value of Z supports the alternate hypothesis. The RUD test has been applied to the four sub-catalogues containing logcumulative values of moments. The total number of data in each case is 43 and the results of the analysis are summarized in Table 1. It is interesting to note that in the western Himalaya and western Nepal the number of runs is less than the mean run, and the Z values are negative. The situation is reverse in eastern Nepal and northeast Himalaya, where the Z value is positive. The Z values lie between the critical values of +1.96 and 1.96 (for = 0.05); it can be concluded that the number of runs U does not suggest the sequences to be systematic. Failure of null hypothesis does not always indicate an absence of deterministic systematic patterns in the cumulative moment release data. It has been found earlier that the sequential bed thickness data of turbidite sections in Andaman Island that fails to give hints about the systematic pattern by RUD analysis (Chakraborty et al. 2002), gives facies clustering of thick and thin beds by Hurst plot (Mukhopadhyay et al. 2003). Thus, a search for systematic pattern is attempted by the Hurst plot in the following section.

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Zone C 43 21 21 22 3.20 24 +0.6248

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Number of data Positive transition, n1 Negative transition, n2 Mean run, Parameter, Number of runs, U Parameter, Z 4.

Comparative results of RUD analysis on successive cumulative moment releases of successive years 1964-2006 from west to east in the Himalaya (Zones A to D). Parameters , and Z are calculated from eqs. (3), (4), and (5). Zone D 43 20 22 21.9523 3.1931 26 +1.2676

PATTERN RECOGNITION BY HURST PLOT AND INFERENCES

Hurst (1951, 1956) proposed Hurst statistics while working on the long-term storage on reservoirs along the river Nile and deduced a relationship R/S ~ N h, where R is the maximum range of cumulative departure from mean annual river discharge, N is the year of observations, S is the standard deviation of

T ab l e 1

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Fig. 3. Hurst plots of years against cumulative difference from mean log-cumulative moment release data of earthquakes in four zones (A-D). Note the IDs of Table 2 are plotted as numbers.

The plot of Zone A (western Himalaya) indicates a prolong negative sloping segment from 1964 to 2004 with two small positive perturbations indicating high moment release by two medium-sized earthquakes, one in 1972 and the other in 1981 (IDs 1, 2 of Table 2, Fig. 3a). This extremely

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the river discharge. Hurst approximated the coefficient h by K, where K is equal to log(R/S) /log(N/2). The logarithm of cumulative moment calculated for the earthquake events of successive years in an earthquake catalogue may exhibit a pronounced alternate clustering of high and low values. To determine this pattern a rescaled scaled plot (Hurst plot) is used. The rescaling process is done against the mean value in the time series. The cumulative moment values of successive years for an individual zone (Zone A of Fig. 2) are taken. Mean M and standard deviation S of data are calculated. From each data, the mean M is subtracted and then cumulative difference from the mean is computed by adding the values. The moment release pattern can be graphically seen from the Hurst plot of cumulative difference from the mean moment against years. It contains both positive and negative sloping segments. The negative sloping segment suggests a slow release of moment (or temporal slackening of elastic strain release) compared to the average (mean) rate and may indicate a precursor for large impending event. Alternately, a positive sloping segment suggests a rapid release of moment in quick succession compared to the whole catalogue and indicates occurrence of medium to large earthquake events. Hurst plots corresponding to the four zones in Fig. 3 have been prepared and subject to detail analysis.

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T ab l e 2 Important medium- to large-sized events in A to D zones in the Lesser Himalaya. Note the IDs that are plotted in Fig. 3.
Zone ID A 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 Date 1972 Sep 03 1981 Sep 12 2005 Oct 08 1966 Mar 06 1966 Jun 27 1966 Jun 27 1975 Jan 19 1975 Jan 19 1980 Jul 29 1991 Oct 19 1999 Mar 28 2004 Oct 26 1965 Jan 12 1974 Sep 27 1980 Nov 19 1986 Jan 10 1987 Aug 09 1988 Aug 20 1990 Jan 09 1993 Mar 20 1998 Sep 03 2003 Mar 25 1964 Sep 01 1964 Oct 21 1967 Mar 14 1967 Sep 15 1998 Sep 26 2005 Jun 01 2006 Feb 23 Time 16h48m29.00s 07 15 54.00 03 50 41.00 02 15 57.00 10 41 08.10 10 59 18.10 08 01 57.70 08 12 09.80 14 58 41.60 21 23 15.00 19 05 12.30 02 11 33.00 13 32 24.10 05 26 33.60 19 00 45.00 03 46 30.90 21 15 02.70 23 09 10.10 02 29 21.80 14 51 59.70 18 15 52.10 18 51 26.00 13 22 37.30 23 09 19.00 06 58 04.40 10 32 44.20 18 27 01.00 20 06 41.00 20 04 54.00 Lat 35.94 35.68 34.54 31.49 29.62 29.71 32.39 31.94 29.63 30.77 30.51 31.02 27.40 28.59 27.40 28.65 29.47 26.72 28.15 29.03 27.86 27.26 27.12 28.04 28.41 27.42 27.76 28.88 26.91 Long 73.33 73.60 73.59 80.50 80.83 80.89 78.50 78.52 81.09 78.79 79.42 81.15 87.84 85.51 88.80 86.56 83.74 86.63 88.11 87.33 86.95 89.33 92.26 93.75 94.29 91.86 92.81 94.63 91.71 Mb 6.2 6.1 7.7 6.0 6.0 6.0 6.2 5.8 6.1 6.4 6.3 6.0 5.9 5.5 6.0 5.5 5.5 6.4 5.7 5.7 5.6 5.5 5.6 6.0 5.7 5.8 5.5 6.1 5.8 h Name of the [km] earthquake 45 30 26 50 33 36 1 49 23 15 20 10 23 20 47 53 74 65 41 15 14 47 33 37 20 19 15 25 10

Kashmir

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C D

slow release of moment (elastic energy) is followed by a megaevent, Kashmir earthquake of Mb 7.7 in 2005 (ID 3 of Table 2, Fig. 3a). A positive sloping segment marks this megaevent indicating a sudden rise in moment release. This suggests that a long negative sloping trend indicating slow moment release pattern is bound to hit back by a megaevent. The aim of this analysis is to find out such a pattern in the datasets of the rest of the zones (B to D) under scrutiny, and predict a possible source zone for the next impending mega event in the Himalaya.

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Uttarkashi Chamoli Gangtok Bihar-Nepal

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The Hurst plot of Zone B (Western Nepal Himalaya) indicates alternate positive and negative sloping segments. The initial negative segment of 1964-1965 is followed by a positive sloping segment upto 1966, yielding three earthquakes (IDs 4, 5, 6 of Table 2 and Fig. 3b). The pattern again repeats; there is a negative sloping segment (1967-1974) followed by a positive sloping segment, releasing two medium-sized earthquakes in 1975 (IDs 7, 8 of Table 2 and Fig. 3b). This is followed by a nearly horizontal segment from 1976 to 1983, a small negative sloping segment between 1984 and 1990, followed by a positive sloping segment yielding Uttarkashi earthquake in 1991 (ID 10 of Table 2 and Fig. 3b). The negative sloping segment from 1992 to 1998 is followed again by Chamoli earthquake of 1999 (ID 11 of Table 2 and Fig. 3b). A low-angle negative segment between the years 2000 and 2003 is immediately followed by an earthquake in 2004 (ID 12 of Table 2 and Fig. 3b). The pattern in this plot testifies that a negative sloping segment always precedes a medium-sized earthquake event. It is interesting to note that an overall negative sloping segment prevails from 1992 to 2006. Zone B is a place where interactions of two sets of cross cutting tectonic trends take place; the E-W trending Himalayan MFT-MBT-MCT with NESW trending MDF-GBF (Fig. 1). Geologically, it is known that domains of intersecting faults are favourable sites for stress build up and are seismically potential (Andrew 1989). Furthermore, this zone has already recorded some large historical earthquakes, like the July 1720 (Mw 7.5) Uttarpradesh earthquake, or August 1916 (Mw 7.3) and July 1926 (Mw 6.5) Uttaranchal earthquakes. Considering the recent negative trend (between 1992 and 2006) in the Hurst plot (Fig. 3b), as well as the occurrence of historical earthquakes and zones of fault interaction, this source zone may produce a megaevent of comparable size to the Chamoli and Uttarkashi events or even stronger, any time in near future. The plot of Zone C (Eastern Nepal Himalaya) indicates two positive and two negative sloping segments. The negative sloping segment, from 1964 to 1985, with positive perturbations generates earthquakes with IDs 13, 14, 15 of Table 2 and Fig. 3c. The following positive sloping segment, from 1986 to 1993, yields five earthquakes (IDs 16 to 20 of Table 2 and Fig. 3c) including the Bihar-Nepal earthquake (Mb 6.4) of 1988. A negative sloping segment from 1994 to 2002 with a spike due to the occurrence of a mediumsized earthquake (ID 21 of Table 2 and Fig. 3c) is followed by a small positive segment spawning earthquake in 2003 (ID 22 of Table 2 and Fig. 3c). The absence of any characteristic trend in this zone makes any prediction difficult. The Hurst plot of Zone D (Northeast Himalaya) indicates two positive and two negative sloping segments. The positive pattern between 1964 and 1969 yields earthquakes with IDs 23-26 of Table 2 and Fig. 3d. The negative

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Any study on the earthquake parameters aims to find out a pattern to prognosticate a future shock. In this study, the non-parametric statistical RUD test and construction of Hurst plots on the cumulative moment release data of successive years (1964-2006) on four zones (A to D) of the Himalaya have been made for identification of such a pattern. The RUD analysis does not suggest that the cumulative moment release pattern is systematic. However, the failure of null hypothesis does not always mean the absence of systematic patterns in the dataset. Therefore, a search for a systematic pattern to identify clusters of low and high values in the moment release has been carried out by Hurst analysis. The Hurst plots (Fig. 3) of four zones bring out the inherent clustering patterns of moment release by revealing the successive series of low and high values in the dataset which corroborates well the occurrence of large to medium-sized earthquakes. The plots also suggest a characteristic pattern that bears the signature to prognosticate a next impending earthquake in the Himalaya. The pattern is a long negative sloping segment (indicating slow and decreasing moment release) immediately followed by a medium to large-sized earthquake with a pattern reversal to positive sloping segment. Such a pattern exists in Zone A prior to Kashmir (Mb 7.7) earthquake in 2005, in Zone B before Chamoli (Mb 6.3) earthquakes of 1999, and also in Zone C preceding Bihar-Nepal (Mb 6.4) earthquake of 1988. A relook on the Hurst plot of Zone A (Fig. 3a) shows that it takes almost 21 years (1964-2004) of seismic lull period to accumulate sufficient elastic strain to generate an earthquake of magnitude 7.7 (2005 Kashmir earthquake). Though within this seismic lull period two earthquakes with magnitude greater than 6.0 at 1972 and 1981 (IDs 1, 2 of Table 2, Fig. 3a) have occurred, these earthquakes were not sufficient to release the entire amount of elastic strain accumulated within rock-masses so far. Hence, within a seismic cycle, the possibility of occurrence of a megaevent (Mb 7.0) is not

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CONCLUSIONS

sloping segment prevails upto 1981 and is followed by a positive sloping segment upto 1998 yielding an earthquake of Mb 5.5 in 1998 (ID 27 of Table 2 and Fig. 3d). The negative sloping segment from 1998 to 2004 is followed by a positive spike in 2005-2006, yielding earthquakes of IDs 28, 29 of Table 2 and Fig. 3d. Considering the recent negative trend (1998-2006) in the moment release pattern, coupled with seismotectonic vulnerability of the area in terms of spawning large earthquakes of June 1897 (Mw 8.7), January 1941 (Mw 6.5), October 1943 (Mw 7.2), July 1947 (Mw 7.5), and August 1950 (Mw 8.6), we can expect a medium to large-size earthquake in near future.

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delayed by the occurrence of several moderate (Mb ~ 6.0) events prior to it. Similarly, seismic lulls of 8 years each (1967-1974, 1992-1998) have generated earthquakes of comparable size, of 6.2 (1975) and 6.3 (1999 Chamoli earthquake) in Zone B. Therefore, as the duration of seismic lull increases, the size of impending event increases too. A focus on Hurst plots of Zones B and D (Figs. 3b, d) indicate that Zone B (between years 1992-2006) and Zone D (between years 1998-2006) do exhibit negative sloping moment release pattern in recent times. Within these periods, both these zones have released some of the accumulated strain by spawning earthquakes with Mb 6.0 (IDs 11, 12, 28 of Table 2 and Fig. 3). As these zones still maintain the negative sloping moment release trend, two possibilities can be apprehended keeping in view the moment release signature of Zone A. One possibility is the occurrence of an immediate moderate size earthquake with magnitude Mb ~ 6.0 that may reverse the moment release trend from negative to positive. Otherwise, the negative trend may continue for a couple of years more and spawn an earthquake comparable to the size of Kashmir earthquake of 2005 as found in Zone A. Evaluating the consequences of both possibilities it can be logically concluded that Zones B and D are in the verge of experiencing an earthquake of magnitude ~ 6.0 or > 7.0 immediately or pretty soon, depending on the period of seismic lull. Thus, from the above study we can only constrain the source zone for the next impending event but the exact size and timing of the event cannot be deciphered.

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Received 10 April 2008 Accepted 7 August 2008