DCS-DST NEWS

January 2010

THE 2009 BHUTAN AND ASSAM FELT EARTHQUAKES (MW 6.3 AND 5.1) IN NORTHEAST HIMALAYA REGION AND THE ACTIVE KOPILI FAULT

J.R. KAYAL1*, SERGEI S. AREFIEV2, SAURABH BARUAH3, RUBEN TATAVOSSIAN2, NABA GOGOI4, MANICHANDRA SANJOUM5, J.L. GAUTAM6, DEVAJIT HAZARIKA7 AND DIPAK BORAH3
1. Department Applied Geophysics, Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad 826004, India * Corresponding author, email: jr.kayal@gmail.com 2. Institute of Physics of the Earth, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia 3. North East Institute of Science & Technology, Jorhat, Assam, India 4. National Geophysical Research Institute(Hyderabad), Tezpur Project, Assam, India 5. Department Earth Sciences, Manipore University, Imphal, India 6. India Meteorological Department, New Delhi, India 7. Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, Dehradun, India

seismically and tectonically more complex than the eastern/central or western Himalaya segments ((Kayal, Microearthquake Seismology and Seismotectonics of South Asia, 503p, Springer, 2008). The region experiences several large/great earthquakes due to the Himalayan collision in the north, Indo-Burma atypical subduction tectonics to the east and due to intra-plate seismic activity in the Assam valley-Shillong Plateau-Bengal basin. The intra-plate seismic activity is fairly intense in this region due to the complex stress regime (Angelia and Baruah, Geophys J. Int, doi: 10.1111/j.1365-246X.2009.04107, 2009). Since the 1897 Shillong Great Earthquake (Ms 8.7), about 22 large earthquakes (M> 7.0) are recorded in the northeast India region including the two great earthquakes (Ms~ 8.7), the 1897 and the 1950, respectively (Kayal, Microearthquake Seismology and Seismotectonics of South Asia, 503p, Springer, 2008). Most of the large earthquakes are recorded in the Indo-Burma region, in the inter-plate/dipping seismic zone, but four intra-plate large earthquakes occurred much to the east of the IndoBurma subduction zone or much south of the Himalayan collision zone. These are the 1943 event (M 7.2) on the Kopili fault in the Assam valley, the 1930 event (M 7.1) on the Dhubri fault at the western boundary of the Shillong plateau, and rest two in the Bengal basin (Fig.1). In the Bengal basin, the 1923 event (M 7.5) is assigned to the Hinge zone and the 1918 event (M 7.6) to the Sylhet fault (Fig.1) (Nandy, Geodynamics of northeastern India and adjoining region, 209p., ACB Pub., 2001). The Hinge zone is a sub-surface structure, approximately 500 km long and 25-100 km wide, that separates the continental shelf to the west and the geosynclinal basin to the east (Evans, J Geol Soc India, 5, 80-96, 1964). Recently, we have recorded two strong felt earthquakes in this region, one Mw 6.3 on September 21, 2009 that occurred on the Main Central Thrust (MCT) in the Bhutan Himalaya, and the other Mw 5.1 on August 19, 2009 in the Assam valley on the Kopili fault, respectively (Fig.1). These two events occurred almost within a month, and are reported as shallow focus (depth ~ 10 km) earthquakes in the USGS (United States Geological Survey) reports. The northeast India region is well equipped with about 25 permanent broadband seismic stations since 2001. We have studied focal mechanisms of these two felt events by waveform inversion, and examined the recent seismicity. The results are discussed here in the background of the known seismotectonics of the two different tectonic domains that are in close proximity.
13

ABSTRACT Seismotectonics of the two recent felt earthquakes, one Mw 6.3 in the Bhutan Himalaya on September 21, 2009 and the other Mw 5.1 in the Assam valley on August 19, 2009, are examined here. The recent seismicity and fault plane solutions of these two felt earthquakes suggest that both the events occurred on the Kopili fault zone, a known active fault zone in the Assam valley, about 300 km long and 50 km wide. The fault zone is transverse to the east-west Himalayan trend, and its intense seismicity indicates that it transgresses into the Himalaya. The geologically mapped curvilinear structure of the Main Central Thrust (MCT) in the Himalaya, where the epicenter of the Bhutan earthquake is located, is possibly caused by the transverse Kopili fault beneath the MCT. This intensely active fault zone seems vulnerable for an impending larger earthquake (M >7.0) in the region, and it needs close and continuous monitoring. INTRODUCTION The northeastern Himalaya and the adjoining region, between latitude 22-30o longitude 88-98o N, are

DCS-DST NEWS

January 2010

BHUTAN HIMALAYA EARTHQUAKES The Bhutan Himalaya has no record of great or large earthquake (M> 7.0) during the past 200 years. Historical records of occurrence of large earthquakes before 1800 AD are mostly lacking. The seismicity of Bhutan Himalaya during the last 100 years, as reported in the International Seismological Centre (ISC) catalogs is, however, low compared to its adjoining Himalayan segments in the west. The low seismicity has been attributed to lower convergence rate. It is suggested that the India-Eurasia convergence is largely accommodated by the pop-up tectonics of the Shillong Plateau to the south, and the Bhutan Himalaya lies in the shadow zone with less seismicity (Gahalaut, Phys Earth Planet Interior, under pub, 2010). The September 21, 2009 strongly felt earthquake provides an insight into the seismotectonics of the Bhutan Himalaya. We have examined the recent seismicity and a N-S cross section in this area that includes the Shillong plateau, Assam valley and the Bhutan Himalaya; the EHB relocated events (M> 4.5) since 1995 are considered (Fig. 1). The section shows that the Shillong plateau earthquakes are mostly confined within a depth of 40 km and bounded by two major boundary faults, Dapsi thrust (DT) and Brahmaputra fault (BF), which has been also observed by local broadband network data (Kayal et al., Curr. Sci., 91(1), 109-114, 2006). The north dipping DT, a conjugate of the Dauki fault, is identified to be an active thrust that demarcates the southern boundary of the Shillong plateau activity and also truncated the maximum isoseismal of the 1897 Shillong earthquake along this thrust (Kayal and De, Bull Seism Soc Am, 81, 131-138, 1991). The east-west near vertical Dauki fault, which separates the Bengal basin to the south and the Shillong plateau to the north, is much less active. The Bhutan Himalaya earthquakes are found to be much shallower (~10 km) at the MCT zone, particularly the 2009 main shock and its aftershocks that occurred on
14

Fig. 1. Tectonic map of the study region (modified from Kayal et al., Curr. Sci., 91(1), 109-114, 2006); MCT: Main Central Thrust, MBT: Main Boundary Thrust, DF: Dauki Fault, DT: Dapsi Thrust; other features are named in the map. The local seismic broadband stations (blue triangles) used in this study are shown. The recent EHB located earthquakes M > 4.5 (1995-2007) within the rectangle area are shown by green solid circles, the past four larger (M>7.0) intra-plate earthquakes (solid yellow circles) and the two great earthquakes (larger yellow stars) are annotated with the year of occurrence. The two felt earthquakes of 2009 are shown by red stars. The USGS three fault plane solutions, the HRV CMT solution and the two solutions obtained in this study for the September 21, 2009 Bhutan earthquake are illustrated by beach balls with different colours. Two HRV CMT solutions of the past two earthquakes, 1995 and 2006 respectively, in the Bhutan Himalaya are shown by black beach balls. Fault plane solution of the August 17, 2009 Assam earthquake obtained in this study is also shown and annotated. A N-S cross section across the rectangle area, indicating earthquake foci is shown below; the red star and cluster of red solid circles below the curvilinear MCT indicate the September 21, 2009 Bhutan main shock and aftershocks respectively. Inset: Map of India showing the study region by a rectangular box.

DCS-DST NEWS

January 2010

the north-south curvilinear segment of the MCT. The earthquakes further north of the MCT are deeper, down to 50 km (Fig.1). The September 2009 Felt Earthquake (Mw 6.3) The September 21, 2009 earthquake was widely felt; 11 casualties, more than 18 injuries and about 1,100 damaged houses were reported in Bhutan (Fig.2). The maximum intensity reached to VIII the epicenter area (Dowchu, D., 2010, pers com). The epicenter of the event is placed at latitude 27.34N and longitude 91.41E, and depth at ~10 km in the USGS report. The tremor was well felt in the Bhutan Himalaya and in the adjoining northeast India region including Sikkim, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Shillong plateau and in Bangladesh; minor damages to a few Guwahati city houses were also reported in the local news papers.

Three moment tensor solutions are given by the USGS and a centroid moment tensor (CMT) solution by the HRV (Fig. 1). All the four solutions are compatible with Mw 6.1-6.3 and depth ~ 8-10 km, inferring that the event occurred on a shallow north dipping plane assigned to the plane of detachment as the fault plane for this event. This seismotectonic model that the Himalayan earthquakes occur on the plane of detachment is the most widely accepted tectonic model as envisaged by (Seeber et al., Geodyn Series 3, AGU pub. 215-242, 1981), and the Himalayan earthquake solutions are mostly biased to this model. Kayal (Tectonophys. 339, 331-351, 2001), however, argued that this model fits fairly well in the western Himalaya, but not in the eastern or in the northeastern Himalaya. We have reanalyzed the teleseismic waveforms of about 30 global digital seismic stations and obtained a solution of thrust faulting with strike slip component for this event (Fig.1). We infer that the east dipping northsouth nodal plane is the fault plane that is compatible with the north-south trending curvilinear segment of the MCT where the main shock occurred at a shallow depth (Fig.1). A similar solution is reported in the HRV catalog for the event Mw 5.4 of February 26, 2006 near to the 2009 main shock epicenter; this event possibly also occurred on the same seismogenic structure. Another similar solution is observed for the event Mw 5.4 that occurred on February 17, 1995 within 50 km of the main shock epicenter (Fig. 1). Further, we have used the waveform data of five broadband seismic stations of the local network in the northeast India region, which is running to the immediate south of the epicenter of the 2009 Bhutan earthquake, and we obtained a pure thrust faulting mechanism by inversion (Fig.1). In this pure thrust faulting solution (Fig. 1), we also infer the east dipping north-south nodal plane as the fault plane, comparable to that obtained by the teleseismic data of the 30 global stations in this study (Fig.1). The moment magnitude Mw is found to be 6.2 in both the solutions in our study. Thus the two solutions obtained in this study by the teleseismic and by the local network data respectively are unbiased and compatible. These two solutions are also comparable with the HRV solutions of the past two events (M> 5.0) in immediate vicinity. ASSAM VALLEY EARTHQUAKES

Fig. 2. Damaged houses in the meizoseismal area of the September 21, 2009 earthquake, Narang village, Bhutan Himalaya (courtesy: Dowchu, D., 2010, pers com).

We focus our observation on the Kopili fault earthquakes in the Assam valley. The Kopili fault zone, approximately 300 km long and 50 km wide, separates the Shillong plateau and the Mikir massif by strike slip
15

DCS-DST NEWS

January 2010

movement (Fig.1), and it is identified as the most active fault in the Assam valley area (Kayal et al., Curr. Sci., 91(1), 109-114, 2006; Bhattacharya et al., J Asian Earth Sci., 33, 25-41, 2008). The Shillong-Mikir massif are believed to be part of the Indian shield, and transported to the east by the Dauki fault (Evans, J Geol Soc India, 5, 80-96, 1964) (Fig.1). Further, the Mikir massif is a fragmented part of the Shillong massif separated by the Kopili fault. A seismicity map is prepared by relocation of earthquakes recorded by the local networks in the northeast India region (Fig 3). The seismicity trends clearly indicate that the Shillong plateau and the Kopili fault zone are the two main intra-plate earthquake source zones in the area. The b-value, fractal dimension and seismic tomography images revealed the Shillong plateau as a circular source zone whereas the Kopili fault as a gigantic NW-SE trending transverse structure with intense seismic activity down to 40 km (Bhattacharya et al., Curr Sci, 82(12), 1486-1491, 2002; Bhattacharya et al., J Asian Earth Sci., 33, 25-41, 2008). It is further noted that the Kopili fault transgresses into the Himalaya (Fig. 3). No local network is presently running in the Bhutan Himalaya (Dowchu, D., 2010, pers com) that would help to incorporate its local earthquake data in the seismicity map of Fig 3, but the global network data in the Bhutan Himalaya clearly shows that the Kopili fault active zone is extending up to the MCT zone (Figs 1 and 3). Kayal

et al. (Curr. Sci.,91(1), 109-114, 2006) made a detailed study on the Kopili fault zone earthquake source processes and reported that the earthquakes are generated by strike slip faulting on this northeast dipping fault. The August 2009 Felt Earthquake (Mw 5.1) The August 19, 2009 earthquake Mw 5.1 in the Assam valley originated at 10h 45m 14s at latitude: 26.56N, longitude: 92.48E and at a depth ~10 km (USGS report). It has been a well felt earthquake in the region including the Guwahati, Jorhat, Tezpur and Shillong cities in northeast India. No casualties were reported; the maximum intensity reached to VI (Geol Surv India, unpub report). The event is well recorded by the local broadband seismic stations in the area. A well constrained fault plane solution is obtained by waveform inversion using broadband seismograms of five close seismic stations. The estimated seismic moment is compatible with the moment magnitude Mw 5.1. A right lateral strike-slip solution is obtained; the beach ball representation of the solution is given in Fig.1. The NNW oriented nodal plane is the inferred fault plane, which is compatible with the Kopili fault. A similar solution is reported in the HRV catalog for the event Mw 5.4 that occurred at the northern end of the Kopili fault on February 23, 2006 (Fig 1). DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS It is reported that the Himalayan earthquakes are greatly influenced by transverse structures in the eastern and northeastern region (Kayal, Microearthquake Seismology and Seismotectonics of South Asia, 503p, Springer, 2008). Unlike in the western Himalaya where the earthquakes mostly occur on the plane of detachment and fairly fit with the envisaged seismotectonic model (Seeber et al., Geodyn Series 3, AGU pub., 215242, 1981), the eastern or northeastern Himalayan earthquakes do not fit into this model (Kayal, Tectonophys. 339, 331-351, 2001 and Kayal, Geomat Nat Haz and Risk, 1 (1), 51-62, 2010). Long transverse structures across the eastern and northeastern Himalayas, like those of the East Patna fault and Tista Lineament in the eastern Himalaya, and the Kopili fault and Dhubri/Jamuna fault in the northeastern Himalaya play a major role in generating earthquakes in the foredeep and foothills region (Mukhopadhyay, Tectonophys, 109, 227240, 1984; Dasgupta et al., Tectonophys, 136,
16

Fig. 3. The recent seismicity map prepared by the relocated events using the local network data (1993-1999) in northeast India showing high seismic activity in the Shillong plateau and intense seismicity along the NW-SE Kopili fault zone (modified from Bhattacharya et al., J Asian Earth Sci., 33, 25-41, 2008). The two felt earthquakes of 2009 are shown by red stars.

DCS-DST NEWS

January 2010

255-264, 1987). The East Patna fault is argued to be the causative fault for the 1934 great earthquake in the eastern Himalaya foredeep (GSI Sp Pub., 32, 1993; Kayal, Geomat Nat Haz and Risk, 1 (1), 51-62, 2010), and the Dhubri fault for the 1930 large earthquake in the western border of the Shillong plateau (Nandy, Geodynamics of northeastern India and adjoining region, 209p., ACB Pub., 2001). It is further interesting to note that the long lineaments or faults that transgress into the Himalaya cause curvilinear structure on the MCT; the Tista lineament caused such structure in the Sikkim Himalaya (De and Kayal, Tectonophys, 386, 243248, 2004), and the Kopili fault in the Bhutan Himalaya (Fig.1). In Bhutan Himalaya we also observe another curvilinear structure on the MCT along the Jamuna lineament (Fig. 1). Although the MCT is believed to be seismically dormant (Ni and Barajangi, J. Geophys Res, 89, 1147-1163, 1984), the north-south segments of such curvilinear structures on the MCT possibly reflect seismogenic transverse structures transecting them. The zones of insertion seem to be localizing the shallow strike-slip faulting events (De and Kayal, Tectonophys, 386, 243-248, 2004). The September 21, 2009 strong earthquake (Mw 6.3) and its aftershocks in the Bhutan Himalaya occurred on such a north-south intersection segment of the curvilinear MCT (Fig.1). Several studies have reported that the 300 km long Kopili fault transgresses into the Bhutan Himalaya up to the MCT (Nandy, Geodynamics of northeastern India and adjoining region, 209p., ACB Pub., 2001; Bhattacharya et al., Curr Sci., 82(12), 14861491, 2002). The two fault plane solutions of the main shock in this study and the seismic cross section of the main shock and aftershocks clearly indicate that the source zone is below the N-S intersecting Kopili segment (NSIKS) of the curvilinear MCT (Fig 1). We believe that the main shock and the aftershocks occurred on the northern extension of the Kopili fault below this NSIKS. The August 19, 2009 earthquake in the foredeep Assam valley, about 100 km south of the Bhutan Himalaya earthquake occurred at a similar depth (~10 km) and with a right lateral strike-slip fault mechanism on the Kopili fault. The two fault plane solutions that are obtained for the September 21 Bhutan earthquake in the present study are compatible with the August 19 Assam valley earthquake solution. The September 21 Bhutan earthquake solution obtained by the teleseismic data also shows a right lateral strike-slip movement. We believe that the August 19 Assam valley earthquake on

the Kopili fault possibly triggered the September 21 Bhutan Himalaya earthquake at the northern end of the fault at a similar depth and with similar source mechanism. Kayal et al. (Curr. Sci., 91(1), 109-114, 2006) strongly argued that the Kopili fault is intensively active in the region, and is vulnerable for an impending large earthquake in the northeast India/Himalaya region. The August 19 event could be the foreshock for the September 21, 2009 Bhutan earthquake. A larger and more significant question is whether both the events could be foreshocks (?) for a larger impending earthquake (M >7.0) in the region. Although, apparently the Bhutan Himalaya falls in the Himalayan collision zone and the Assam valley in the foredeep / intra-plate zone, the long transverse Kopili fault zone links these two tectonic zones, and this gigantic transverse structure is capable of generating larger earthquakes in the Bhutan Himalaya as well as in the Assam valley. The January 10, 1869 Cachar earthquake (M 7.5, depth ~ 50 km, intensity VIII+) occurred at the southeastern end of the Kopili fault that caused severe damages in northeast India region (Nandy, Geodynamics of northeastern India and adjoining region, 209p., ACB Pub., 2001). The October 23, 1943 earthquake (M 7.2) occurred almost at the centre of the Kopili fault zone (Fig.1). The present seismicity recorded by the local network shows intensive activity along the Kopili fault zone (Fig. 3). We thus conclude that the gigantic Kopili transverse structure is seismically most active in the region; it caused the two recent felt earthquakes in 2009 and is possibly vulnerable for an impending larger earthquake. Our observations suggest that seismicity along the Kopili Fault and its intersection with the MCT needs to be closely and continuously monitored seismicity and geophysical and other precursors along this active fault needs to be closely monitored so that our preparedness for facing a large magnitude earthquake in this region is scientifically enhanced. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT This research is undertaken under the ILTP (Integrated Long Term Programme), an Indo-Russian collaboration, supported by the Department of Science and Technology, New Delhi, India and by the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia. We express our sincere thanks to the all Heads of the concerned Institutes for their kind support to carry out this research. We sincerely thank Sri. T M Mahadevan, Editor, DST NL for his keen interest in the early publication of this paper.
17