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EMPIRICAL ATTENUATION RELATIONSHIPS FOR THE HIMALAYAN

EARTHQUAKES BASED ON INDIAN STRONG MOTION DATA

Conference Paper · November 2000

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 EMPIRICAL ATTENUATION RELATIONSHIPS FOR THE HIMALAYAN
EARTHQUAKES BASED ON INDIAN STRONG MOTION DATA

Sudhir K. Jain1, Roshan A.D.2, Jaswant N. Arlekar3, P. C. Basu4

ABSTRACT
Attenuation of peak ground acceleration (PGA) in a few Indian earthquakes has been
studied based on data recorded by strong motion accelerographs and structural response
recorders. Published attenuation relationships have been compared with the data, and new
empirical equations have been proposed. Considerable differences are observed in the
attenuation characteristics for four tectonic regions of the country: Central Himalaya, Indo-
Gangetic plains, non-subduction events of North-East India, and the subduction events of North-
East India.

Introduction
Seismic hazard assessment at a site requires estimation of expected ground motion
characteristics due to an earthquake of a given magnitude occurring at a known distance. This is
usually done through empirical attenuation relationships derived from recorded ground motions
of the past earthquakes. A number of ground motion attenuation equations are available in the
literature for different tectonic environments. In recent years, about 100 recordings by strong
motion accelerographs (SMAs) have been obtained in eight earthquakes in India with magnitude
ranging from 5.2 to 7.3 at epicentral distances ranging from about 16km to 400km. During these
events about 300 Structural Response Recorders (SRRs) (Cloud and Hudson, 1961; Krishna
and Chandrasekaran, 1962) have also provided acceleration spectrum ordinates at natural period
values of 0.40sec, 0.75sec and 1.25sec and damping values of 5% and 10%. This paper
compares the attenuation of peak ground acceleration (PGA) during these earthquakes with that
predicted by some published empirical equations. Also, new attenuation relationships have been
proposed based on the recorded SMA and SRR data.

Strong Motion Data

Table 1 lists the earthquake events, the number of SMA and SRR recordings, and the
epicentral distance range. In all cases, earthquake magnitude and focal depth have been taken as
per US Geological Survey (USGS). In most cases, it has not been possible to find details of the
fault rupture. Hence, epicentral distance has been used as the distance parameter. Besides the
epicentral location suggested by USGS and India Meteorological Department (IMD), for some of
the earthquakes Chandrasekaran and Das (1990) have located the epicenter using the recorded
strong motion data. Whichever location gave the best correlation between epicentral distance
and the PGA was used in this study.

1
Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, India.
2
Scientist, Civil & Structural Engineering Division, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, Bombay, India.
3
Graduate Student, Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, India.
4
Head, Civil & Structural Engineering Division, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, Bombay, India.
 Table 1: Earthquake events considered and number of recordings.
Type SMA SRR
Event of Depth Mag No. Distance No. Distance
EQ (km) of Rec (km) of Rec (km)
(used) Min Max (used) Min Max
1986 Dharmshala Thrust 33 5.5 9 2 28 9 5 177
1991 Uttarkashi Thrust 10 7.0 13 19 152 96 14 322
1999 Chamoli Thrust 15 6.6 10 8 123 12 4 158
1986 NE Thrust 43 5.2 11 6 90 - - -
1987 NE Thrust 49 5.9 14 90 243 - - -
1988 NE Thrust 33 5.8 18 35 176 - - -
1988 NE Subduction 90 7.3 33 99 327 104 39 772
1990 NE Subduction 119 6.1 14 200 320 - - -
1988 Bihar-Nepal Strike-Slip 57 6.8 - - - 38 42 337

Figure 1: Locations of the earthquakes considered in this study.

Locations of the earthquakes are shown in Fig. 1. The 1986 Dharmshala (M5.5), 1991
Uttarkashi (M7.0) and 1993 Chamoli (M6.6) earthquakes, located in the Central Himalayan
tectonic zone, comprise of similar geological setting. The 1988 Bihar-Nepal (M6.8) earthquake
occurred in the Indo-Gangetic plains with deep alluvium. The five earthquakes in the northeast
India occurred in a tectonically complex domain of the Indian subcontinent. This domain
displays convergence of two Tertiary mobile belts: the continuation of the Himalayan tectogen
with east-west structural elements and the Indo-Burmese Orogen north-south disposed belt with
subduction of the Indian plate below the Burmese plate. Out of these, the August 1988 (M7.3)
and January 1990 (M6.1) events are subduction zone earthquakes. Based on the above
considerations, the nine events are grouped into four categories: (a) the three events of Central
Himalaya, (b) the three non-subduction earthquakes of North-East India, (c) the two subduction
events of North-East India, and (d) the Bihar-Nepal earthquake in Indo-Gangetic plains.

The SRR consists of six seismoscopes (natural periods: 0.40, 0.75, and 1.25sec;
damping: 5% and 10% of critical) to measure the horizontal motion. The six oscilloscopes
together provide three points on the 5% response spectrum and three points on the 10% response
spectrum. However, since maximum motion in any direction is recorded, the SRR gives
ordinates of the resultant response spectra. Spectral amplification factors (ratio of resultant
response spectrum ordinate and PGA) from SMA recordings in the respective regions were
studied. These did not show significant correlation with epicentral distance. Hence, for given
natural period and damping the average values of spectral amplification factors were used to
estimate PGA from the SRR recording. Finally, the six estimates of PGA from one SRR were
averaged. The quality of observations from SRRs vis-à-vis SMAs was verified through statistical
comparisons. A few SRR recordings that appeared inconsistent were discarded. Since SMA
records for the Bihar-Nepal earthquake were not available, spectral amplification factors for
North-East India were used for estimating PGA values for the Bihar-Nepal earthquake.

Comparisons with Published Attenuation Relationships

Fig. 2 compares the recorded PGA values with the attenuation relationships by Boore et
al. (1997), Campbell (1997) and Sadigh et al. (1997) for non-subduction earthquakes, and by
Crouse (1991) and Youngs et al. (1997) for the 1988 subduction earthquake. Unfortunately,
local site conditions, e.g., shear wave velocity (Vs), at the recording stations are not available.
Hence, all recordings for the Bihar-Nepal (1988) earthquake have been assumed to be on deep
alluvium (Vs=310m/sec) and all those for the remaining events on rock sites (Vs=620m/sec). The
closest horizontal distance to the vertical projection of the rupture (rjb) used by Boore et al.
(1997) is assumed equal to the epicentral distance. Similarly, the hypocentral distance is taken
as the closest distance to the rupture surface (rrup or Rseis) required in some other relationships.

Fig. 2 shows that the Campbell (1997) and Sadigh et al. (1997) relationships
significantly underestimate the motion. With the assumed shear wave velocities, Boore et al.
(1997) equation provides fairly good estimate for PGA except for the Bihar-Nepal earthquake.
Bihar-Nepal earthquake shows very high values of PGA at short epicentral distances and all the
equations considered significantly underestimate the motion for this region. For the 1988
subduction zone earthquake, the relationship by Youngs et al. (1997) gives better estimate of
motion than that by Crouse (1991).

Regression Analysis
The method of least square was adopted for regression of the following expression into
the different sets of data:
ln (PGA ) = b1 + b2 M + b3 R + b4 ln (R ) (1)
where bi represent the coefficients to be determined from regression, M is the earthquake
magnitude, and R is the epicentral distance. The third and fourth terms here represent material
and geometric damping, respectively. A rather simple linear regression model was adopted (as
against more sophisticated models like multistage regression) in view of the limited data. The
attenuation relationships obtained for each category of events, standard error (σ), and number of
data points considered are:

Central Himalayan Earthquakes

ln (PGA ) = −4.135 + 0.647 M − 0.00142 R − 0.753 ln (R ); σ = 0.59, N = 149 (2)
Non-Subduction Earthquakes in North-East India
ln (PGA ) = −3.443 + 0.706 M − 0.828 ln (R ); σ = 0.44, N = 43 (3)
Subduction Zone Earthquake in North-East India
ln (PGA ) = −0.332 − 0.00233 R − 0.329 ln (R ), (for M 7.3); σ = 0.59, N = 137 (4)
Bihar-Nepal Earthquake
ln (PGA ) = 2.103 − 0.00604 R − 0.760 ln (R ), (for M 6.8); σ = 0.70, N = 38 (5)
1

0.1
PGA (g)

σ σ
σ
0.59 0.55 0.73
0.01 0.70 0.72 0.79
0.99 0.94 1.02
1.21 1.23 1.18
(a) 1986 Dharmshala M5.5 (b) 1991 Uttarkashi M7.0 (c) 1999 Chamoli M6.6
0.001

0.1
PGA (g)

σ σ σ
0.43 0.37 0.45
0.01 0.61
0.54 0.47
1.55 2.05 1.55
1.86 2.32 1.83
(d) 1986 NE M5.2 (e) 1987 NE M5.9 (f) 1988 NE M5.8
0.001
1

0.1
PGA (g)

σ
σ 0.67 Central Himalayas
0.01 0.96
0.59 NE Non-Subduction
1.05 1.72 NE Subduction
0.79 1.22 Bihar-Nepal
(g) 1988 NE M7.3 (h) 1986 Bihar-Nepal M6.8 (i) Proposed relationships for M7.0
0.001
1 10 100 1000 1 10 100 1000 1 10 100 1000
Epicentral distance (km) Epicentral distance (km) Epicentral distance (km)
Proposed, Boore, Sadigh, Campbell, Crouse, Youngs, SMA, SRR.
Figure 2: Recorded data and different attenuation relations.

Fig. 2 shows the proposed equations along with standard error (σ). The Chamoli
earthquake (Fig. 2c) gives largest value of σ (=0.73) due to one observation of PGA less than
0.01g recorded at about 100km. If this point is excluded σ reduces to 0.58. The 1986 NE
earthquake has one recording of 0.087g at 6.2km and its inclusion was significantly affecting
trend of the regression relationship. Since the epicentral location is only approximate, this point
was excluded from the data set. In the resulting regression equation for non-subduction
earthquakes of North-East India, value of b3 came positive implying a negative material
damping. Hence, regression for this category was performed with b3=0. Out of the two
subduction zone earthquakes, the 1990 (M6.1) event had data only in distance range of 200-
327km, and the recorded PGA values were comparable to those for the M7.3 event of August
1988 at similar distances. It implied a very weak dependence of PGA on magnitude, which
cannot be concluded based on this rather limited data. Hence, data for the 1990 (M6.1) event
was excluded from regression. This resulted in having only one subduction zone event, and
therefore, the magnitude term was dropped from the equation. Similarly, for the Indo-Gangetic
plains, where data from only one event was available, the equation does not include the
magnitude term.

Comparison of the proposed relationship with that by Boore et al. (1997) indicates that
with the assumed values of shear wave velocity the latter somewhat overestimates the motion in
the Central Himalayan earthquakes and underestimates the motion in the non-subduction events
of North-East India. Fig. 2(i) compares the proposed equations for the four tectonic categories
for a M7.0 event. Eq.4 for the subduction zone earthquake is for M7.3 and Eq.5 for the Bihar-
Nepal region for M6.8 event. To plot equations for an M7.0 event for these two categories, the b2
value was assumed as 0.70 and the value of b1 adjusted accordingly. Considering the epicentral
distance range of 10km to 100km, which is of maximum engineering interest, motion is weakest
in the Central Himalayan earthquakes and strongest in the Bihar-Nepal earthquake. For the same
magnitude (M7.0), the ratio of PGA in the Indo-Gangetic plains to that in the Central Himalaya
ranges from 5.2 (at 10km) to 3.4 (at 100km). The rate of attenuation with distance is lowest for
the subduction event in North-East India and is highest for the Bihar-Nepal earthquake; ratio of
PGA at 10km to that at 100km is 2.6 for the former and 9.9 for the latter.

Conclusions
Attenuation relationships by Campbell (1997) and Sadigh et al. (1997) significantly
underestimate the ground motion (in terms of PGA) for Indian earthquakes. Boore et al. (1997)
relationship with the assumed values of shear wave velocity somewhat gives reasonable
estimates except for the Indo-Gangetic region where it significantly underestimates the motion.
Youngs et al. (1997) and Crouse (1991) equations underestimate motion for subduction events
in the North-East India. New attenuation equations have been derived based on the SMA and the
SRR data for four tectonic regions of India. Significant variation in attenuation characteristics is
found in these regions. The Central Himalayan earthquakes produce the weakest motion while
the Bihar-Nepal earthquake in the Indo-Gangetic plains has the strongest motion. The rate of
attenuation with distance is lowest for the subduction earthquakes in North-East India and is the
highest for the Indo-Gangetic plain. Due to rather limited data, the proposed relationships may
be used only as first approximation for estimating ground motion. As more strong motion
recordings become available in these regions, these may be updated.

Acknowledgement
The authors gratefully acknowledge the Department of Earthquake Engineering at the
University of Roorkee for supplying the strong motion data; special mention must be made of
 Professors P.N.Agrawal, B. Chandra, and S. Basu for their support. Financial support from the
Ministry of Human Resource Development of the Govt. of India towards earthquake engineering
research at IIT Kanpur is also gratefully acknowledged. The second author (ADR) would like to
thank Atomic Energy Regulatory Board for granting him leave to carry out his studies at IIT
Kanpur.

References
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Components of Peak Ground Acceleration, Peak Ground Velocity, and Pseudo-Absolute
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