Gondwana 1242 Research (Gondwana Newsletter Section) V. 7, No. 4, pp. 1242-1247.

2004 International Association for Gondwana Research, Japan.

GNL

CORRESPONDENCE

Clustering of Earthquake Events in the Himalaya Its Relevance to Regional Tectonic Set-up
Basab Mukhopadhyay, Sabyasachi Dasgupta and Sujit Dasgupta
Central Headquarters, Geological Survey of India, 27, J. L. Nehru Road, Kolkata - 700 016, India, E-mail: basabmukhopadhyay@yahoo.com (Manuscript received May 5, 2004; accepted July 29, 2004)

Abstract
The earthquake events of Himalaya of magnitude 5.0 from the time window 19052000 are statistically analysed. The inter-event time between earthquakes shows Hurst phenomena of temporal clustering which are spatially located in five distinct domains along the Himalayan fold-thrust belt. Out of these, two domains, one around UttaranchalNepal border and the other around Nepal-Sikkim border reveal maximum number of temporal clusters and thus considered as seismically most potential zones of the Himalaya. Both these zones are located at the interface of the orthogonally disposed major tectonic discontinuities of the Peninsular Shield and Himalayan fold-thrust belt. Such zones are geologically most favourable locales for strain accumulation during later-tectonic movement. Statistical analysis points towards a probability of recurrence of seismic events in near future in these two zones. However, validity of such statistical results can be ascertained by detailed geological and geophysical modelling of the terrain. Key words: Earthquake, temporal and spatial cluster, Hurst phenomena, Poisson probability, recurrence.

Introduction
The Himalayan fold-thrust belt is known for its seismic activity. Some of the most devastating earthquakes of this belt are Kangra earthquake of 1905, Dharchula earthquake of 1916, Gangtok earthquake of 1980, Bihar-Nepal earthquake of 1988, Uttarkashi earthquake of 1991 and Chamoli earthquake of 1999. The Himalayan fold-thrust belt is characterized mainly by the presence of four major thrusts, namely Indus Suture Zone, Main Central Thrust, Main Boundary Thrust and Main Frontal Thrust (Fig. 1). All these thrusts are traceable from west to east through out the length of the belt. Besides, several orthogonally disposed major tectonic discontinuities of the peninsular shield also extends within this belt, evident by the presence of several collinear transverse faults/lineaments. From the available seismic data, it is found that both these sets of orthogonally disposed tectonic discontinuities played important role in the recent reactivation history. Seismicity can be approximated as a poisson cluster process, in which cluster or sequences of earthquakes are statistically independent although individual earthquakes

in the cluster are dependent events. The sequences are assumed to be a Poissonian time series with constant rate. The distribution pattern of the earthquake in space and time in a collisional tectonic zone is analysed in predicting or forecasting the next impending earthquake activity. Moderate earthquakes (7 m 5) are strongly clustered in space and time and best-known example possibly be the after shock sequences. The earthquake-clustering hypothesis has been offered to explain the spatial and temporal clustering of such earthquakes (Kagan, 1991 and 1997). The prevalence of earthquake clustering and its strong imprint on spatial and temporal patterns of seismicity, provide convincing arguments for depicting computational model of earthquake processes and its source mechanism. Temporal clustering is particularly important for understanding the stress accumulation and its subsequent release in a high strain state, resulting multiple seismic activities over a geologically short span of time. Thus, in order to determine the temporal and spatial clustering and probability of recurrence of comparable cluster, the following issues are subjected to statistical test for Himalayan fold-thrust belt.
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Statistical Study
The earthquake event data for time window 1905 to 2000 were compiled from ISC data on Himalayan foldthrust belt. The events whose magnitude (M) is greater than or equal to 5.0 are considered for statistical analyses. The methodology and results of this analysis are stated below. The distribution of hypocenters of earthquakes in Himalayan fold-thrust belt is illustrated in figure1. Data is collected from the existing earthquake database at Geodata and Database Division of GSI Headquarters at Kolkata. Identification and quantification of temporal clustering The inter-event time of earthquake events forms a time series. It is known that calculation of Hurst statistics provide a powerful tool for determining the degrees of clustering of low and high value in a time series. The time interval between the successive events in an earthquake catalogue may reject the null hypothesis of randomness and thus can exhibit a pronounced alternate temporal clustering of earthquake events. This section will generate a statistics known as Hurst Coefficient (H) that can quantify the temporal clustering of events in a time series. Hurst (1951,1956) proposed this statistical application while working on the long-term storage on reservoirs along river Nile and deduced a relationship that states R/S~NH, 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 the river discharge. He approximated the coefficient H as: log(R/S)/log10(N/2) (1)

It is also observed that natural process occurring in irregular groups of high and low values shows high H value. Wallis and Matalas (1970, 1971) have shown that a natural process is said to follow Hurst phenomena only when H value exceeds 0.5. To calculate H for N numbers of observations, the observations (the inter-event time) are transformed logarithmically (log10) and processed using the Fortran-77 programme (hurst.for developed by Chen and Hiscott, 1999 for analysis of facies clustering in turbidite and see also Mukhopadhyay et al. 2003 for its application). Mean and standard deviation of data are calculated on these log-transformed values. R is calculated from the Hurst plot (a XY-plot between earthquake events and log of cumulative departure from mean inter-event time). The temporal clustering can be pictorially inferred from this plot as negative sloping segments, as this part indicates more earthquake events in a comparatively very short span of time. The inter-event time of earthquakes of Himalayan belt follows Hurst phenomena, as the calculated value of Hurst coefficient (H) is 0.7604. The Hurst plot of the Himalayan sector shows both increasing (+ve) and decreasing (ve) trend. The decreasing or negative trend in the plot demarcate temporal clustering and marked as A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H and I in the plot (Fig. 2). A brief account of the clusters is given in table 1. This table gives information about the starting and ending date of the cluster, time span of the cluster, inter-cluster time interval, number of earthquake in the cluster and most importantly the spatial zone of the nine clusters in the Himalaya with in a time

Table 1. Summary of temporal clusters of seismic events in the Himalaya (April, 1905 and December, 2000). Cluster id A B Starting date of cluster July-1947 April-1964 Ending date of cluster August-1950 June-1966 Time span of cluster in years 3.08 2.16 Inter-cluster time in years Determination Not possible 13.66 Main spatial domain of cluster Total no. of earthquakes in the temporal zone 8

C D E F G H I

September-1974 February-1980 October-1983 September-1987 July-1992 June-1996 September-1998

December-1975 January-1982 April-1984 May-1988 March-1993 July-1996 March-1999

1.25 1.91 0.5 0.66 0.66 0.083 0.5

8.25 4.166 1.75 3.083 4.166 3.583 2.166

Upper Siang valley 1. Uttaranchal-Nepal Himalaya border 2. Nepal-Sikkim Himalaya border 3. Bhutan-Arunachal Himalaya border 1. Kinnaur valley 2. Uttaranchal-Nepal Himalaya border Uttaranchal-Nepal Himalaya border Uttaranchal-Nepal Himalaya border Nepal Himalaya Tibet along Indus Tsangpo Suture (ITS) Tibet Uttaranchal Himalaya

26 20 15 6 3 4 3 5

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Fig. 1. Map showing the distribution of earthquake hypocenters in the Himalaya : MFTMain Frontal Thrust, MBTMain Boundary Thrust, MCT Main Central Thrust, ITSIndus-Tsangpo Suture, MDFMahendragarh-Dehradun Fault, GBFGreat Boundary Fault, MSRMFMunger Saharsha Ridge Marginal Fault, MKFMalda-Kishanganj Fault, JamJammu, ChChamba, SiSimla, LeLeh, DdDehra Dun, NdNew Delhi, JaiJaipur, AllAllahabad, ShShillong, KolKolkata, BhuBhubansehwar.

Fig. 2. Scatter plot (Hurst Plot) of the earthquake event sequential number vs. log(cumulative departure from mean interevent-time). A to I represents the temporal clusters. Gondwana Research, V. 7 , No. 4, 2004

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window 19052000. The temporal occurrence of the earthquake cluster is depicted diagrammatically in the figure 3, where the clusters are summarised as a bar diagram in a linear time axis. The width of the bar is indicative of time span of clustering in years whereas its height is marked as the number of earthquake in that stipulated cluster. Up until January 1982, the clusters not only have larger time span but also yield more numbers of earthquakes compared to clusters in recent past (Fig. 3 and Table 1). This indicates a reduction in strain accumulation in recent past, which might have been caused by adjustment along the seismogenic discontinuity surfaces. The temporal clustering in the dataset also displays spatial concentration (Fig. 4). The relationship between the spatial clusters and tectonic domains will be discussed in details in the next section. Poisson probability of recurrence of a cluster The temporal clustering process is a spatially inhomogeneous cluster point process (Kagan, 1991). Thus the poissonian distribution of occurrence of cluster can be used to quantify the Poisson probability of getting one such cluster in near future by employing the following equation (taken from Meyer, 1975): (2) Pr = (r e-) / r! Where P r is Poisson probability of r given the parameter ; where =x, rate function, x time interval, r number of events in x time interval. The years, on which the maximum probability is achieved, can be considered as the probable years for the next clustering event. The clusters are then plotted on the map, from which the maximum likelihood of spatial zone of clustering can be inferred. For calculating this, we have used (2) described above and calculate the probability of occurrence of one cluster by varying time x (no. of years) from 1 to 25 years, keeping a constant rate function (). The rate function () is calculated to be 0.09375. The result is summarized in

table-2. The plot of poisson probability makes a characteristic bell shaped curve when expected time of years is plotted against the probability of occurrence of one cluster (Fig. 5). This indicates that initially the probability increases rapidly, and then stabilizes, and finally it decreases with the increase of expected year. From table-2 and figure 5, it is inferred that the maximum probability of occurrence of next cluster will be after 10 years from the last observed cluster (ended on March 1999) and will continue for another year. This inference is drawn because the poisson probability attains maxima (ranging from 0.3671 to 0.3677) in the 10 th and 11th year (Fig. 5 and Table-2). Thus, we can again expect a cluster in Himalayan region between 2009 and 2011. For calculating the number of earthquake in that particular cluster, we adopted an inference model calculated from the dataset of table-1. The inter-cluster time (TC) when plotted against the number of earthquake in the cluster (N), two different inference domains are found (Fig. 6). The first domain, with inter-cluster time less than 4 years, indicates a negative sloping regression. Whereas, the other, with inter-cluster time greater than 4 years, yields a positive sloping regression. The regression equation of the second inference (N = 1.1552 * TC + 10.289) is considered because the assumed inter-cluster time is 10 years. This indicates a probable recurrence of at least 21 earthquakes (Magnitude 5) in temporal cluster domain
Table 2. Poisson probability for getting one cluster in projected years ( = 0.09375) Time in years (x) 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 = ( * x) 0.09375 0.1875 0.28125 0.375 0.46875 0.5625 0.65625 0.75 0.84375 0.9375 1.03125 1.125 1.21875 1.3125 1.40625 1.5 1.59375 1.6875 1.78125 1.875 1.96875 2.0625 2.15625 2.25 2.34375 Poisson probability 0.085360352 0.155442979 0.212298678 0.257733545 0.293336347 0.32050296 0.340458165 0.354275093 0.362892559 0.367130507 0.367703766 0.365234302 0.360262107 0.353254895 0.344616709 0.334695578 0.323790299 0.312156467 0.30001181 0.287540925 0.274899459 0.262217813 0.249604417 0.237148614 0.224923213

Fig. 3. Bar diagram showing number of earthquake in clusters against time. Gondwana Research, V. 7, No. 4, 2004

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around 2009 to 2011. This result can only be confirmed and further enriched with more input received from detailed geological and geophysical studies in this terrain.

Relevance to the Regional Tectonic Setting

The temporal domains A to I (Fig. 2) are analysed and plotted on the regional map to delineate the spatial disposition of the clusters (Fig. 4). Five seismically potential zones (designated as 1 to 5 in Fig. 4) are identified. Among these, maximum numbers of temporal clusters are observed in zone-2 and 3 and thus are considered to be seismically most vulnerable areas within the Himalayan belt. Hence, characteristics of these two zones are studied in details. The zone-2 lies around Uttaranchal Nepal border with E-W spread of the temporal cluster of the seismic events, paralleling the trend of major Himalayan thrust. On the other hand, Zone-3, lying around SikkimNepal border, displays N-S spread of the cluster, in co-linearity with the major tectonic discontinuities of the

Peninsular shield. Available fault plane solutions (Dasgupta et al., 2000) bring out a difference in mechanism of rupture, operative in these two zones. In zone-2 thrusting dominates over the strike-slip mode; while the scenario is reverse in Zone-3. This change in mechanism might have resulted from the difference in angle of spatial disposition of the active discontinuity surfaces in these two zones with respect to the movement vector of the Indian plate. Among the already mentioned five seismically potential domains, Zones 2 and 3 have a distinctive feature with respect to their spatial disposition. Both these zones are located at the interface between the orthogonally disposed major tectonic discontinuities of the peninsular shield and the Himalayan fold-thrust belt. The subsurface Great Boundary Fault (GBF) and Mahendragarh-Dehradun Fault (MDF) as well as Munger Saharsha Ridge Marginal Fault (MSRMF) and Malda-Kishanganj Fault (MKF) are traced upto the foothill Himalaya of Zone-2 and Zone-3 respectively (Fig. 4). The extension of these major tectonic

Fig. 4. Map showing spatial distribution of the temporal clusters in the Himalaya. A to I represents temporal clusters: 1 to 5 represents spatial clusters. Other explanations are same as in Figure 1. Gondwana Research, V. 7 , No. 4, 2004

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discontinuities below the Himalayan fold-thrust belt is evidenced by the presence of several co-planar faults lineaments within these two zones. The presence of the Rajmahal trap within the intervening area between the Munger Saharsha Ridge Marginal Fault and the MaldaKishanganj Fault, points towards the deep seated nature of these faults. It has already been geologically established that such domains of intersecting major discontinuities are favourable locales for stress build up and hence considered as seismically potential (Andrew, 1989; Talwani and

Gangopadhyay, 2003). Thus, the geological setup also corroborates the seismic potentiality of zone-2 and 3, established from the present statistical analyses.

Conclusions
(1) The temporal occurrences of earthquakes in the Himalayan sector exhibit hurst phenomena and strong temporal and spatial clustering. (2) Geological evidences also corroborate the seismic potentiality of zone-2 and 3, established from the statistical analyses. (3) From the present statistical study, it has been inferred that recurrence of earthquake cluster (= 5.0 M) in the Himalayan belt, particularly in zone 2 and 3 is expected around 2010.

References
Andrew, D.J. (1989) Mechanics of fault junction. J. Geophys. Res., v. 94, pp. 9389-9397. Chen, C. and Hiscott, R.N. (1999) Statistical analysis of facies clustering in Submarine fan turbidite successions. J. Sediment. Res., v. 69, pp. 505-517. Dasgupta, S., Pande, P., Ganguly, D., Iqbal, Z., Sanyal, K., Venkatraman, N.V., Dasgupta, S., Sural, B., Harendranath, L., Mazumdar, S., Sanyal, S., Roy, A., Das, L. K., Misra, P.S. and Gupta, H. (2000) Seismotectonic Atlas of India and Its Environs. Geol. Surv. India, p. 87. Hurst, H.E. (1951) Long term storage capacity of reservoirs: American Society of Civil Engineers, Transactions, v. 116, pp. 770-808. Hurst, H.E. (1956) Methods of using long-term storage in reservoirs: Institute of Civil Engineers, Proc., Part 1, v. 5, pp. 519-590. Kagan, Y.Y. (1991) Likelihood analysis of earthquake catalogue. Geophys. J. Int., v. 106, pp. 135-148. Kagan, Y.Y. (1997) Are earthquake predictable, Geophys. J. Int., v. 131, pp. 505-525. Meyer, S. L. (1975) Data analysis for Scientists and Engineers. John Wiley and sons, p. 202. Mukhopadhyay, B., Chakraborty, P.P. and Paul, S. (2003) Facies Clustering in Turbidite Successions: Case Study from Andaman Flysch Group, Andaman Islands, India. Gondwana Res. (GNL Section), v. 6, pp. 918-925. Talwani, P. and Gangopadhyay, A. (2003) Seismogenesis of Intraplate Earthquakes. Abst., Indo-US workshop on Seismicity & Geodynamics, October 6-10, 2003, NGRI, Hyderabad, India, pp. 16-17. Wallis, J. R., and Matalas, N. C. (1970) Small sample properties of H and K estimators of Hurst coefficient h. Water Resource Res., v. 6, pp. 1583-1594. Wallis, J. R., and Matalas, N. C. (1971) Correlogram analysis revisited. Water Resource Res., v. 7, pp. 1448-1459.

Fig. 5. A scatter-plot between expected time in years vs. the poisson probability of occurrence of one cluster

Fig. 6. Scatters plot between the inter-cluster time (TC) vs. the number of earthquake (N). Regression equation for TC less than 4 years (N = 1.7341 TC + 8.8382) and for greater than 4 years (N = 1.1552 TC + 10.289). R2 - degree of fitting of the regression line.

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