Journal
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS
Volume 43, Issue 3, Pages 1118-1123Publisher
AMER GEOPHYSICAL UNION
DOI: 10.1002/2015GL067336
Keywords
seismic risk; Himalaya
Categories
Funding
- NSF [1345136]
- Directorate For Geosciences
- Division Of Earth Sciences [1345136] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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The Himalayan arc produced the largest known continental earthquake, the M-w approximate to 8.7 Assam earthquake of 1950, but how frequently and where else in the Himalaya such large-magnitude earthquakes occur is not known. Paleoseismic evidence for coseismic ruptures at the front of the Himalaya with 15 to 30m of slip suggests even larger events in medieval times, but this inference is debated. Here we estimate the frequency and magnitude of the largest earthquake in the Himalaya needed so that the moment released by seismicity balances the deficit of moment derived from measurements of geodetic strain. Assuming one third of the moment buildup is released aseismically and the earthquakes roughly follow a Gutenberg-Richter distribution, we find that M-w>9.0 events are needed with a confidence level of at least 60% and must return approximately once per 800years on average.
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