Seismicity of Kerala: An update

DOI

10.2991/rare-16.2016.76How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Seismicity; horizontal stress; neotectonic; recurrence interval

Abstract

The earthquake catalogue of the Kerala State indicates that the central part of the state (Wadakkancheri-Trissur and Idukki –Kottayam- Pala) is witnessing repeated seismicity. Though lineaments of all directions are identified in Kerala, some NW-SE trending structures are identified as neotectonically active and some of these NW-SE trending structures are even the source of recent seismicity. Some of the fault related geological studies in Peninsular India (Wadakkancheri, Periyar and Thenmala faults) identified that the region is responding to compressive tectonic regime. The slickensides from these faults indicate the recent movements are consistent with the present tectonic stress regime. Though the geological observations and seismological data indicate northeast directed stress regime, the in-situ stress measurement carried out at northern side of the study area shows local perturbation in maximum horizontal stress. Analysis of available seismic data of the region suggest that the seismic source at Idukki-Pala is indicating some recurrence pattern for moderate earthquakes and are spatially located close to the southeastern end of Periyar fault. The seismicity in the Wadakkancheri-Trissur, on the other hand, falls in the northwestern end of Periyar fault. It is also to be noted that the earthquakes in central Kerala were occurring as doublets. Thus, the estimation of earthquake potential of these regions through a proper integration of different disciplines and techniques is the need of the hour

Copyright

© 2016, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - John Biju
AU  - Babu A Rajan
AU  - D.S. Subrahmanyam
AU  - Singh Yogendra
AU  - E. Praseeda
AU  - K.S. Divyalakshmi
AU  - Nelliat Sandeep
AU  - Samui Pijush
AU  - G.P. Ganapathy
PY  - 2016/11
DA  - 2016/11
TI  - Seismicity of Kerala: An update
BT  - Proceedings of the conference on Recent Advances in Rock Engineering (RARE 2016)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 480
EP  - 483
SN  - 2352-5401
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/rare-16.2016.76
DO  - 10.2991/rare-16.2016.76
ID  - Biju2016/11
ER  -