Probabilistic assessment of earthquake hazards in the Indian subcontinent

Abstract

The Indian subcontinent is one of the most seismic prone areas of the world. The Himalayan mountains in the north, mid-oceanic ridges in the south and earthquake belts surrounding the Indian plate all show that the subcontinent has undergone extensive geological and tectonic processes in the past. The probability of the occurrence of earthquakes with magnitude 6 < M(b) < 7 during a specified interval of time has been estimated on the basis of four probabilistic models namely Lognormal, Weibull, Gamma and Exponential distribution for the Indian subcontinent. The seismicity map has been prepared using the earthquake catalogue from the period 1963-1994, and six different zones have been identified on the basis of clustering of events. The model parameters have been estimated by the method of maximum likelihood estimates (MLE) and method of moments (MOM). A computer program package has been developed for all four models, which represents the distributions of time intervals fairly well. The logarithmic of likelihood (1n L) is estimated for testing the models and different models have been found to be plausible. The probability of different magnitude thresholds has been evaluated using the Gutenberg-Richter formula Log N = a - bM for magnitude distribution. The constants a and b have been computed for each region and found to be varying between 5.46-8.53 and 0.87-1.34, respectively.