Bhuj) Epicentral Region, Western India
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Downloaded from specialpapers.gsapubs.org on April 11, 2013 Geological Society of America Special Papers Seismic-reflection images of the crust beneath the 2001 M = 7.7 Kutch (Bhuj) epicentral region, western India D. Sarkar, K. Sain, P.R. Reddy, R.D. Catchings and W.D. Mooney Geological Society of America Special Papers 2007;425;319-327 doi: 10.1130/2007.2425(20) Email alerting services click www.gsapubs.org/cgi/alerts to receive free e-mail alerts when new articles cite this article Subscribe click www.gsapubs.org/subscriptions/ to subscribe to Geological Society of America Special Papers Permission request click http://www.geosociety.org/pubs/copyrt.htm#gsa to contact GSA Copyright not claimed on content prepared wholly by U.S. government employees within scope of their employment. 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Notes Geological Society of America Downloaded from specialpapers.gsapubs.org on April 11, 2013 The Geological Society of America Special Paper 425 2007 Seismic-refl ection images of the crust beneath the 2001 M = 7.7 Kutch (Bhuj) epicentral region, western India D. Sarkar† K. Sain P.R. Reddy National Geophysical Research Institute, Hyderabad 500 007, India R.D. Catchings W.D. Mooney U.S. Geological Survey, Mail Stop 977, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA ABSTRACT Three short (~35 km) seismic-refl ection profi les are presented from the region of the 2001 Mw = 7.7 Bhuj (western India) earthquake. These profi les image a 35–45- km-thick crust with strong, near-horizontal refl ections at all depths. The thickness of the crust increases by 10 km over a distance of ~50 km from the northern margin of the Gulf of Kutch to the earthquake epicenter. Aftershocks of the Bhuj earthquake extend to a depth of 37 km, indicating a cold, brittle crust to that depth. Our results show that all of these aftershocks are contained within the crust. Furthermore, there is no evidence for offsets in the crust-mantle boundary associated with deep (mantle) faulting. The existence of a thick (~45 km) and highly refl ective crust at the epicentral zone may be indicative of crustal thickening due to the compressive regime of the past 55 m.y. Alternatively, this crustal thickening could be attributable to magmatic intrusions that date back to Mesozoic rifting associated with the breakup of Gond- wanaland. Keywords: India, seismic refl ection, crustal thickness, Bhuj earthquake. INTRODUCTION 2002; Mishra and Zhao, 2003) with no obvious surface expres- sion (Chandrasekhar et al., 2004; Rastogi, 2004). The largest The 26 January 2001, Mw 7.7 Bhuj, western India, earth- amount of fault slip (10 m) was located close to the hypocenter quake had a focal depth of 21 ± 4 km (Kayal et al., 2002; Anto- and had an area of ~10 km × 20 km (Negishi et al., 2002). The lik and Dreger, 2003; Mandal et al., 2004). Aftershocks outlined area of the rupture zone (~40 km × 40 km) appears to be unusu- an ENE-trending S-dipping reverse fault (45°–50° dip) extend- ally small for a Mw 7.7 event, and suggests a high (13–25 MPa) ing to a depth of 37 km (Raphael and Bodin, 2002; Kayal et al., static stress drop event (Negishi et al., 2002), similar to other †E-mail: [email protected]. Sarkar, D., Sain, K., Reddy, P.R., Catchings, R.D., and Mooney, W.D., 2007, Seismic-refl ection images of the crust beneath the 2001 M = 7.7 Kutch (Bhuj) epi- central region, western India, in Stein, S., and Mazzotti, S., ed., Continental Intraplate Earthquakes: Science, Hazard, and Policy Issues: Geological Society of America Special Paper 425, p. 319–327, doi: 10.1130/2007.2425(20). For permission to copy, contact [email protected]. ©2007 The Geological Society of America. All rights reserved. 319 Downloaded from specialpapers.gsapubs.org on April 11, 2013 320 Sarkar et al. intraplate earthquakes (Schulte and Mooney, 2005). A tomo- 2001 events. In addition, a smaller (Mw 6.0) earthquake occurred graphic study of the aftershocks showed a distinctly high P-wave in 1956 near Anjar (Fig. 1). This event also had a reverse mecha- velocity and low S-wave velocity (and thus a high Poisson’s ratio) nism (Chung and Gao, 1995), which indicates a prevailing com- at the lower-crustal hypocentral zone (Kayal et al., 2002). Mishra pression-dominated regime. and Zhao (2003) suggested that the 2001 Bhuj earthquake was Kutch seismicity, like that of the New Madrid seismic zone characterized by high crack density, saturation rate, and porosity of the eastern United States, is typifi ed by a relatively short (200– in the depth range of 23–28 km. According to Mishra and Zhao 500 yr) recurrence interval of major earthquakes, which does not (2003), these mid-crustal anomalies indicate the presence of a readily conform to the statistics inferred from the rate of micro- fl uid-fi lled, fractured rock matrix, and would thus constitute a earthquake activity (Mandal and Rastogi, 2005). However, Stein local zone of weakness. and Newman (2004) argued that the calculated recurrence inter- The 2001 Bhuj earthquake occurred ~130 km southeast val of the larger New Madrid seismic zone events is consistent of the epicenter of the 1819 Allah Band earthquake (Mw 7.8), with microseismic activity if the magnitudes of the larger events which also ruptured on a reverse fault (Fig. 1; Rajendran and are not overestimated (Stein and Newman, 2004). The seismic- Rajendran, 2001). Based on paleoliquefaction studies, Tuttle ity of the New Madrid seismic zone is considered to be a clas- et al. (2001) reported that another similar-sized event occurred sic example of intraplate seismicity related to a reactivated rift in the Allah Band region 800–1000 yr ago. Kaila et al. (1972) (Mooney et al., 1983; Chiu et al., 1992; Liu and Zoback, 1997; computed a recurrence interval of 200 yr for Kutch earthquakes, Newman et al., 1999; Schulte and Mooney, 2005; Li et al., 2007; which is comparable to the time interval between the 1819 and McKenna et al., 2006). It has been hypothesized that the North Figure 1. Tectonic map of Kutch showing major fault systems (adapted from Malik et al., 2000). The epicenters of the 2001 Bhuj earthquake (23.36°N, 70.34°E) as well as the two earlier events of 1819 and 1956 are indicated by asterisks. The focal mechanism of the 2001 earthquake is also shown. Three seismic lines (A, B, C) are shown as thick solid lines with corresponding shot points (open circles). Inset shows the study area. Downloaded from specialpapers.gsapubs.org on April 11, 2013 Seismic-refl ection images: Epicentral region, western India 321 American ambient stress fi eld reactivates faults associated with 2000). The geophone spacing was 100 m, and the shot interval the Reelfoot rift (Grana and Richardson, 1996). was 7–8 km. Holes drilled to a depth of 20–30 m were used to Although the Kutch region has been rather well-explored detonate 50–500 kg explosives, depending upon the shot-receiver by the oil industry, most studies have been limited to the shal- distances. The objective of the seismic survey was to delineate low sedimentary formations and the Deccan volcanics overlying the basement confi guration and to identify buried sediments that the granitic basement, and we still lack a well-determined crustal are often masked under higher-velocity Deccan volcanics. The velocity model for this region. We have some knowledge of the refraction data, however, indicated some basement faults, either geologically mapped faults but insuffi cient information regarding directly observable in the form of fault-plane refl ections or in the disposition of blind faults in the crust. Such data are neces- terms of an abrupt change in the basement depth. Here, we repro- sary in order to differentiate between the crustal structure of the cessed the data to image the middle and lower crust. seismogenic and nonseismogenic areas of the Kutch region. The data presented here consist of three line segments: A, B, In this study, we seek to determine the deep seismic structure and C with 4, 3, and 4 shots, respectively (Fig. 1). We reprocessed of the crust at and adjacent to the epicenter of the Bhuj earthquake. these profi les using standard two-dimensional (2-D) Kirchhoff Data from three seismic profi les within the region have been pro- prestack depth migration from commercial software package cessed to determine crustal refl ectivity patterns and to constrain the ProMAX installed on a Sun Workstation. Prestack depth migra- lateral variations in the crust that may be signifi cant for understand- tion has become an important tool for obtaining quality images ing Kutch seismicity. With these objectives, we have depth-migrated from seismic data acquired in geologically complex regions seismic-refraction data collected in 1997 (NGRI, 2000) to produce (Yilmaz and Doherty, 1987; Milkereit et al., 1990; Lafond and a depth section similar to multichannel seismic data.