ESTIMATION OF SOURCE CHARACTERISTICS OF HIMALAYAN EARTHQUAKE

Abstract

The scope of this work involved the estimation and analysis of source characteristics for the Himalayan earthquakes. The data is collected from the seismic network , Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology. The data includes a total of 369 events recorded at 123 seismic stations in the month of April in 2015. The data consisted of earthquake that occurred in Nepal on 24th April, 2015. The source characteristics estimated are Local Magnitude, Moment Magnitude, Source Radius, Corner Frequency, Seismic Moment and the Stress Drop. S phase spectra of the events have been modelled according to a 3 point model. P-phase, S-phase, coda wave and amplitudes were picked initially to determine the source characteristics. Maintaining the residual travel time as low as possible determines the higher accuracy of result. The result that is obtained after locating events and determining source characteristics showed that the result followed the standard observations as the Local Magnitude vary with Moment Magnitude. Corner Frequency and the Stress Drop also vary with the magnitudes which confirms to the established result. Some events however were too scattered to determine a decent value of the source parameters.