Paleoseismology of the largest earthquakes from the Himalayan front

Koji Okumura, Javed N. Malik, Prakash Pokhrel, & Soma N. Sapkota

Published August 14, 2019, SCEC Contribution #9552, 2019 SCEC Annual Meeting Poster #126

A lot of new paleoseismological data and new interpretations of past data on the rapture history of the Himalayan frontal thrusts have been presented since 2015 Gorkha earthquake. There are plenty of exciting findings and interesting ideas that may improve forecast and risk evaluation of catastrophic earthquakes along the Himalayan front. However, the new data and interpretations do not converge into unique solution, but often to rather a chaotic diversity of rupture histories in time and space. This diversity is a natural consequence of independent enthusiastic researches, but one may observe it as weakness of earthquake geology and bring discredit to our research. In order to realize reliable forecast and risk assessment, it is necessary to find a way to reconcile discrepant data and ideas and to try to establish credible unique space-time series of large earthquakes on Himalayan front. For that sake, evaluation of constraints on the timing of events, the east and west terminations of the rupture is crucial. The evaluation is not easy, but at least to review the reliability of the constraints are the first step for the unique time-space series. The author is going to examine the surface ruptures, from west to east, of 2005, 1555, 1905, 1803, 1505, 1344, 1833, 1255, 1934, and ~1100 C.E. with the author's own new data.

Key Words
Himalayn front, surface rupture, historic earthquake

Citation
Okumura, K., Malik, J. N., Pokhrel, P., & Sapkota, S. N. (2019, 08). Paleoseismology of the largest earthquakes from the Himalayan front. Poster Presentation at 2019 SCEC Annual Meeting.

Related Projects & Working Groups
Earthquake Geology