Analysis of the devastating Kashmir earthquake 2005 aftershocks

作者：Rehman Khaista^*; Qadri S M Talha; Ali Aamir; Ali Asghar; Ahmed Sajjad

来源：Arabian Journal of Geosciences, 2016, 9(5): 379.

DOI：10.1007/s12517-016-2418-6

• Seismicity
• Aftershock analysis
• Omori law
• Kashmir
• Pakistan

Along with most of the northern Pakistan and the Kashmir regions (Kashmir and eastern districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa), Muzaffarabad and Balakot were shaken by a predominantly disastrous earthquake of magnitude Mw 7.6 in 2005. The earthquake is expected to have killed over 80,000 people and 70,000 injured, nevertheless little recognized about its aftershocks. We studied the instrumental earthquake data from the International Seismological Centre (ISC) and United Sates Geological Survey (USGS)/Preliminary Determination of Epicenters (PDE) for the period of October 2005 to March 2006. Reasenberg's algorithm (Reasenberg in Geophys Res 90: 5479-5495, 1985) was applied to identify the aftershocks from the main earthquake catalog, and a catalog of 497 aftershock sequences is assembled during the time period of October, 08 2005 to March 20, 2006. In order to explain the variation of aftershocks, several histograms of time, magnitude, depth, and hour of the day have been made. The results show that prominent variation exists within the 3 days after a main shock of Kashmir 2005 earthquake. The size distribution of aftershocks is analyzed using the Gutenberg-Richter law, and the value of b is 1.1 +/- 0.07. Omori-Utsu law was used to describe the decay rates of aftershock sequences in and around Kashmir. The decay component, p, which is generally known as "p value" is calculated to be 1.58 +/- 0.07.

• 出版日期2016-5