J Seismol
DOI 10.1007/s10950-012-9340-5
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
1 Introduction
India has a long history of earthquakes. In the last
50 years, the population of India has doubled and
resulted in very rapid growth of settlements, especially
in urban areas. Presently about 50 million people in
India, living in the Himalayan region and adjoining
plains, are at risk from earthquakes. During the last
200 years, the Indian peninsula has experienced several great earthquakes, namely: Kutch, Gujrat (1819),
M08.0; Assam earthquake (1897), M08.7; Kangra
earthquake (1905), M08.0; Bihar-Nepal earthquake
(1934), M08.3; and Assam earthquake (1950), M0
8.5. Most of the Himalayas comprising North India
and North eastern India are mapped as either seismic
zone IV or V in the seismic zonation map of India (on
a scale of II to V). Two of the recent significant earthquakes in North India are the Uttarkashi earthquake of
1991 (Mw 06.8) and Chamoli earthquake of 1999
(M w 06.5). The maximum intensity of Uttarkashi
Date
Latitiude
(N)
Longitude
(E)
Magnitude
Region
Distance from
Delhi (km)
15 Jul 1720
28.37
77.10
6.5
Delhi
27
01 Sep 1803
27.50
77.70
6.8
Mathura
129
16 Jan 1842
27.00
78.00
5.0
Near Mathura
192
10 Oct 1956
28.15
77.67
6.7
Near Bulandshahar
65
27 Aug 1960
28.20
77.40
6.0
Near Faridabad
46
15 Aug 1966
28.67
78.93
5.8
Near Moradabad
167
20 Oct 1991
30.75
78.86
6.6
Uttarkashi
305
29 Mar 1999
30.49
79.29
6.5
Chamoli
280
26 Nov 2007
28.68
77.20
4.2
Delhi Metropolitan
15
edge of the fault, the center of the fault, and the center of
the downdip edge of the fault (points A, B, and C in
Fig. 1b).With width fixed at 80 km, the length of the
fault was computed from the relation M0log (LW)+4.0,
where L and W are length and width in kilometers (Wyss
1979; Singh et al. 1980). The expected LW for Mw 0
7.5, 8.0, and 8.5 are 5656, 12580, and 40080 km,
respectively. The simulated horizontal traces at NDI for
Mw 07.5, 8.0, and 8.5 are shown in Fig. 3a. The
corresponding velocity time histories for Mw 07.5, 8.0,
and 8.5 are shown in Fig. 4.
The accelerograms at NDI of a postulated Mw 05.5
in Delhi were synthesized using the EGF technique
mentioned above. We used the recording at NDI of the
local earthquake from 25 Nov 2007 (28.57 N and
77.1 E; depth030.0 km; Mw 04.1) as the EGF and
used 0130 bars for both the EGF and the target
events. Figure 3b illustrates a synthesized NS accelerogram of the postulated earthquake.
3 Transfer functions
Transfer functions at 55 different sites in Delhi with
respect to NDI were established from 13 earthquakes
(regional as well as local) using the standard spectral
ratio method (Borcherdt 1970). Most of these data
were collected by Wadia Institute of Himalayan
Geology during a period of 3 months during which
broad band seismometers in different locations in
Delhi were deployed and recorded 11 earthquake
events. Using these data, transfer functions with respect to NDI were generated at 39 locations in Delhi
(Mittal 2011). Transfer functions at the remaining 16
locations out of 55 were established using records of
7.5 magnitude
8.0 magnitude
8.5 magnitude
5.5 magnitude
7.5 magnitude
8.0 magnitude
8.5 magnitude
b) The high spectral acceleration in the eastern region is mainly due to thick Yamuna alluvium, but
high spectral accelerations observed in southern
Delhi may be due to contact between Aravalli
quartzite and older quaternary alluvium.
c) At high frequencies (0.3 s), the levels of spectral
acceleration in Delhi are similar for M w 08.0
earthquake in Himalayas and M w 05.5 earthquakes near Delhi. However, at low frequency,
for a near field earthquake, the level of Sa is not
as large as that due to Mw 08.0 earthquake in
Himalaya.
5.5 magnitude
0.3 Sec
1.0 Sec
higher vulnerability zones in Delhi in small pockets due to local site conditions and prevailing
topography. These pockets seem to coincide with
the contacts of (a) Aravalli quartzite and recent
Yamuna alluvium (towards the East), (b) Aravalli
quartzite and older quaternary alluvium (towards
the South), and (c) older quaternary alluvium and
0.3 Sec
1.0 Sec
0.3 Sec
1.0 Sec
0.3 sec
1.0 sec
will provide general guidelines for integrated planning of cities and in sitting new structures that are
more suited to an area, along with information on
the relative damage potential of the existing structures in a region.
Our studies are based on limited data and,
hence, are necessarily preliminary. Since most of
the transfer functions used herein are first-order
approximations determined from local earthquakes,
these need to be validated in the future using more
earthquake data. Also, multiple readings would be
desirable at all sites. Detailed studies need to be
undertaken for soil investigation at all the sites.
This will help in determining the local site effects
more accurately for assessment of amplification of
ground motion. We also recommend establishing a
dense seismic network in and around Delhi to
generate the database so as to verify and improve
the site specific studies for prediction of ground
motion.
Acknowledgments The authors are profusely thankful to
Prof. S.K. Singh, Instituto de Geofisica, Universidad, Nacional
Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM) for providing the codes of his
program and helping us throughout this work. He deserved to be
a coauthor of this MS, but we exclude him on his insistence. We
are also very thankful to editor-in-charge, for his valuable revisions and comments, which helped us to clarify and improve
this paper. Comments from all anonymous reviewers helped in
improving manuscript. The author (HM) thankfully acknowledges Dr. Arjun Kumar, IIT Roorkee for his support.
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