uplift and convergence along the himalayan frontal thrust of india along the himalayan thrust front in northwestern india terrace deposits exposed 20 to 30 m above modern stream level are interpreted to have been uplifted by displacement on the underlying himalayan frontal thrust a radiocarbon age limits the age of the terrace to 1665 215 calendar bc 3663 215 radiocarbon years before present yielding a vertical uplift rate of 6 9 1 8 mm yr in combination with published studies constraining the dip of the himalayan frontal thrust fault to about 30 in the study area the observed uplift rate equates to horizontal shortening across the himalayan frontal thrust of 11 9 3 1 mm yr and the slip rate of the himalayan frontal thrust of 13 8 3 6 mm yr this is similar to previously reported rate estimates along the himalayan arc based on displacement of older plio miocene age rocks or the much shorter records of geodesy and historical seismicity the similarity is consistent with the idea that convergence across the himalayan front has occurred at a relatively steady rate through time the seismic expression of this deformation includes several great m 8 historical earthquakes which due to lack of surface rupture during those events have been attributed to their occurrence on blind thrusts yet the occurrence of a possible fault scarp in the field area indicates that past earthquakes have been sufficiently large to rupture to the surface and produce coseismic scarps these observations suggest a potential for earthquakes along the himalayan frontal thrust larger than those observed historically

slip distribution beneath the central and western himalaya inferred from gps observations summary underthrusting of the indian plate beneath the himalaya has been the cause of many hazardous thrust faulting earthquakes along the arc moderate earthquakes with magnitudes of 5 occur frequently in this region releasing the elastic strain accumulated over many years around the plate boundary these events can be attributed to slip deficits where the indian and eurasian plates are locked during interseismic periods geodetic measurements can help discriminate the distribution of the interlocking areas and the steadily slipping areas beneath the himalaya to understand the deformation across the central and western himalaya and the associated slip on thrust faults campaign mode gps data were collected in the garhwal kumaun region of the western himalaya gps sites velocities show that the deformation is currently concentrated between the lesser and higher himalaya horizontal velocities are used to estimate the slip distribution for the estimation a model of the interseismic surface deformation caused by buried non uniform creep dislocation nuc on a curved fault surface is used the slip distribution shows that there might be structural discontinuity on the fault between the kumaun and garhwal regions of the himalaya the estimated slip rate at the depth around 20 40 km in the central himalaya and at the depth of 15 km in the western himalaya is 10 mm yr 1 the nuc model indicates that the shallow part 20 km of the thrust fault system along the plate boundary is almost locked the locking depth appears to be deep in the central himalaya and shallower in the western himalaya further most of the historical large seismic events are observed to have occurred in an area with a slip velocity less than 10 mm yr 1 i e in a locked zone at the plate interface

beginning of foreland subsidence in the columbian sevier belts southern canada and northwest montana subsidence analysis and geometry of jurassic cretaceous foreland strata in northwestern montana and southern alberta and british columbia suggest that loading by the fold thrust belt in canada began as much as 40 m y earlier than in montana in canada early foreland basin deposits are late jurassic age thicken rapidly westward and are restricted to a narrow belt within 30 km of the thrust belt in western montana contemporaneous deposits are widespread and do not increase markedly in thickness toward the thrust belt the unconformity overlying these deposits also changes from canada where it is angular to a disconformity in western montana near great falls between these two areas foreland geometry is transitional over a distance of 250 km beyond the transition zone early foreland basin geometries are broadly consistent showing late jurassic foreland subsidence in southern canada and early cretaceous initial subsidence in the united states

indian plate motion and shape constraints on the geometry of the himalayan orogen abstract sea floor palaeomagnetic data that reflect variations in rate and vector of indian plate movement and rotation suggest that initial collision between india and asia occurred at about 50 55 ma ago as the pre collisional indian plate was diamond shaped with the northern margin comprised of two oblique boundaries collision was earliest where these boundaries meet or in what is now the northwest himalaya oblique convergence along each of these two boundaries would generate rotation of thrust sheets as they climb on to the indian plate the oroclinal shape of the main himalayan chain to the east of the northwest himalayan syntaxes reflects a combination of the effects of oblique convergence post collisional anticlockwise rotation of the indian plate and the pinning of the main thrusts at their northwestern terminations by crust thickened during the earliest collisional stage the indian plate rotation enhances a strike slip component of movement along the western oblique margin with the transpressively sinistral chaman fault zone now acting as a continental escape structure

the motion and active deformation of india measurements of surface displacements using gps constrain the motion and deformation of india and india eurasia plate boundary deformation along the himalaya the gps velocities of plate interior sites constrain the pole of the angular velocity vector of india with respect to eurasia to lie at 25 6 1 0 n 11 1 9 0 e approximately 6 west of the nuvel 1a pole of 3 ma plate motion the angular rotation rate of 0 44 0 03 myr 1 is 14 slower than the long term rate of 0 51 myr 1 insignificant velocities between plate interior sites indicate that the exposed indian plate is stable to within 7 10 9 yr 1 the observed contraction vector across the himalaya 20 mm yr veers from n20 e in the northwest himalaya to n25 w in east nepal consistent with east west extension of southern tibet

seismotectonics of the himalayan collision zone geometry of the underthrusting indian plate beneath the himalaya fault plane solutions and well determined focal depths of medium sized earthquakes topography and landsat imagery in conjunction with seismicity maps cross sections and available geological information are used to investigate the present tectonics of the himalayan continental collision zone most of the accurately located epicenters of events along the himalayan arc 78 e 95 e that occurred between 1961 and 1981 are concentrated in a narrow zone about 50 km wide lying between the northerly dipping main boundary mbt and main central mct thrusts most of these events are located just south of the mct though the epicenters of the events are in general well located their depths as determined by teleseismic travel time data are very unreliable events with accurately determined depths obtained from identification of surface reflected phases define a simple planar zone from about 10 km and 20 km depth with an apparent dip of about 15 this result is all the more remarkable considering that the events used were located along about an 1800 km length of the himalyan arc except for one all available focal mechanisms of events within this zone indicate shallow 30 north dipping thrusts this shallow north dipping zone apparently defines a part of the detachment that separates the underthrusting indian plate from the lesser himalayan crustal block the spatial extent and the geometry of this interplate thrust zone strongly indicate that the mbt and nearby subsidiary surface and blind thrusts rather than the mct are currently the most active structures of the himalayan arc we suggest that the great himalayan earthquakes m 8 occur along the same detachment surface as defined by the thrust type medium sized events events located to the south of the mbt and beneath the ganges foredeep show normal faulting with t axes perpendicular to the himalayan trend the above results suggest that the indian continental plate is underthrusting the himalayan crustal blocks in a relatively coherent and simple geometry and that this geometry is not much different from that observed along oceanic subduction zones the november 19 1980 earthquake that occurred near the mct near 88 5 e shows a predominantly strike slip focal mechanism one of the nodal planes of this mechanism is transverse to the himalayan structural grain and moreover this plane has a trend similar to that of the recently mapped yadong gulu rift in the tethyan himalaya and in southern tibet just northeast of the earthquake we interpret this predominantly left lateral strike slip mechanism to indicate a possible genetic relationship between transverse structural features in the underthrusting indian plate the kishangang basement fault and the upper himalayan blocks and tibet

convergence across the northwest himalaya from gps measurements 1 horizontal velocities of 26 global positioning system gps stations in the northwest himalayan region provide new constraints on the partitioning of india eurasia convergence and elastic strain accumulation about the locked main frontal thrust mft the northwest striking karakorum fault slips at 11 4 mm yr and contributes to east west extension of southern tibet and westward motion of the northwest himalaya towards nanga parbat rather than playing a role in eastward extrusion of tibet crustal shortening across the himalaya occurs within a zone centered about 100 km north of the siwalik foothills and the mft model inversions of the gps data indicate that the mft is locked over a width of 100 km comparison with geologic mft slip rate estimates suggests that this zone is building up a slip deficit at a rate of 14 1 mm yr and will eventually fail in future great earthquakes

first order kinematics of wedge scale active himalayan deformation insights from darjiling sikkim tibet dasit wedge abstract the indian plate has collided with the eurasian plate along an arcuate boundary over the last 55 60 million years defining the himalayan mountain belt the geometry of the collision boundary is wedge shaped the base of this wedge is defined by a decollement named the main himalayan thrust mht in the darjiling sikkim tibet dasit himalayan wedge a crustal scale fault bend fold kangmar anticline and the lesser himalayan duplex lhd are dominant structures that have built taper and controlled the foreland ward propagation of the thrust sheets a frontal physiographic half window has eroded through the main central thrust mct sheet to expose the lhd in the dasit wedge preliminary data suggest that active tectonics and seismicity in the dasit wedge may be concentrated in the half window this suggests that lhd may be an active structure high precision global positioning system measurements in the dasit wedge suggest that a minimum of 12 mm yr convergence is being accommodated in the darjiling sikkim himalaya out of which 4 mm yr convergence is being taken up in the lhd given that decollement earthquakes with minimum internal deformation in a deforming wedge occur when it attains critical taper continued deformation within the dasit wedge and the lack of great decollement earthquakes indicate that the dasit himalayan wedge is presently sub critical and in the process of building taper the sub critical nature of the dasit wedge is probably the result of low topographic and decollement slopes weaker rocks and pronounced erosion in the frontal part of the wedge

crustal deformation analysis across garhwal himalaya part of western himalaya using gps observations abstract past earthquakes in the himalayas are mainly due to tectonic activities along the thrust faults parallel to the himalayan belt in order to study the ongoing tectonic process crustal deformation at a selected transect in a part of western himalayas as well as of the indian plate then are studied by the analyses of gps data processed in a gamit globk platform the data were collected from four local continuous operating reference stations cors six international global navigation satellite system service igs stations and five surveyed based gps campaign stations transverse to major faults system results show an annual crustal motion of 19 18 mm near southern tibetan detachment std 18 72 mm near main central thrust mct 11 93 mm near main boundary thrust mbt and 11 53 mm near himalayan frontal thrust hft in india fixed reference the present day indian plate motion was estimated to be 55 33 mm yr in the study region at western himalaya crustal convergence of 13 83 mm yr was observed in dehradun badrinath sector in uttarkhand gps sites near to north of hft shows a westward movements and sites at peninsular india shows eastward movements suggesting possible counter clockwise rotation of the indian plate the annual motion across hft varies between 0 1 and 2 0 mm suggesting that hft is locked in garhwal region of western himalaya insignificant movement across hft indicates greater strain accumulation and the possibility of earthquakes in near future the study suggests requirement of continuous monitoring of deformation across major thrusts in the himalaya with dense network of gps stations

the himalayan arc large scale continental subduction oroclinal bending and back arc spreading abstract palaeomagnetic results from the himalayan arc and southern tibet compared with simulated apparent polar wander paths for the indian plate show a consistent pattern of rotations of the himalayan arc relative to the indian shield varying gradually from 45 clockwise in the northwestern himalaya to slightly counterclockwise in the lhasa region this pattern is consistent with continental underthrusting of greater india beneath the tibetan plateau since the early miocene over at least 650 km at the longitude of western nepal and oroclinal bending since the latest miocene available palaeomagnetic observations support the steady state model for the formation of the himalayan arc with refinements as follows 1 collision between greater india s northern boundary and southern asia occurred at equatorial latitudes with progressive suturing from palaeocene in the northwestern himalaya until early eocene in the eastern himalaya 2 continuing convergence and indentation of greater india into southern asia over about 2000 km up to the early miocene resulted in southeastward extrusion of indochina and 3 neogene counterclockwise rotational underthrusting of greater india along the main central thrust with pliocene quaternary oroclinal bending of the himalayan arc

estimates of interseismic deformation in northeast india from gps measurements abstract estimates of interseismic deformation in northeastern india based on gps measurements at eight permanent stations 2003 2006 and six campaign sites 1997 2006 are presented here the euler pole of rotation of indian tectonic plate in itrf2000 determined from the present data set is located at 51 7 0 5 n 15 1 1 5 e with angular velocity of 0 469 0 01 myr 1 the results show that there is a statistically insignificant present day active deformation within the shillong plateau and in the foreland spur north of the plateau in the brahmaputra valley convergence rate of the northeastern gps sites with respect to the igs station lhasa along baselines that are normal to the himalayan arc in this region is 16 0 5 mm yr this represents the arc normal indo eurasian convergence rate across the northeastern boundary similar to arc normal convergence rates determined in central nepal along the himalayan arc however unlike central nepal in the arunachal himalaya the 16 mm yr shortening is distributed between the lesser as well as higher and tethyan himalayas baselines between sites on the indo burmese fold and thrust belt ibftb and shillong plateau indicate variations in the shortening rate from 1 5 mm yr on the tripura mizoram salient trs south of the plateau to 6 mm yr in the imphal recess ir to the east and 8 mm yr in naga salient ns to the northeast this suggests that the deformation in the ibftb is segmented into n s blocks along e w transverse zones exhibiting dextral slip between ns ir and sinistral slip between ir and trs baselines between the ibftb sites also show 10 0 6 mm yr convergence pointing to the existence of an active transverse zone between aizawl and imphal

space geodetic measurement of crustal deformation in central and southern california 1984 1992 we estimate the velocity field in central and southern california using global positioning system gps observations from 1986 to 1992 and very long baseline interferometry vlbi observations from 1984 to 1991 our core network includes 12 gps sites spaced approximately 50 km apart mostly in the western transverse ranges and the coastal borderlands the precision and accuracy of the relative horizontal velocities estimated for these core stations are adequately described by a 95 confidence ellipse with a semiminor axis of approximately 2 mm yr oriented roughly north south and a semimajor axis of approximately 3 mm yr oriented east west

troposphere mapping functions for gps and very long baseline interferometry from european centre for medium range weather forecasts operational analysis data 1 in the analyses of geodetic very long baseline interferometry vlbi and gps data the analytic form used for mapping of the atmosphere delay from zenith to the line of site is most often a three parameter continued fraction in 1 sin elevation using the 40 years reanalysis era 40 data of the european centre for medium range weather forecasts for the year 2001 the b and c coefficients of the continued fraction form for the hydrostatic mapping functions have been redetermined unlike previous mapping functions based on data from numerical weather models isobaric mapping functions niell 2000 and vienna mapping functions vmf boehm and schuh 2004 the new c coefficients are dependent on the day of the year and unlike the niell mapping functions niell 1996 they are no longer symmetric with respect to the equator apart from the opposite phase for the two hemispheres compared to vmf this causes an effect on the vlbi or gps station heights that is constant and as large as 2 mm at the equator and that varies seasonally between 4 mm and 0 mm at the poles the updated vmf based on these new coefficients and called vmf1 hereinafter yields slightly better baseline length repeatabilities for vlbi data the hydrostatic and wet mapping functions are applied in various combinations with different kinds of a priori zenith delays in the analyses of all vlbi international vlbi service for geodesy and astrometry ivs r1 and ivs r4 24 hour sessions of 2002 and 2003 the investigations concentrate on baseline length repeatabilities as well as on absolute changes of station heights

present day kinematics of asia derived from geologic fault rates active fault geometry available quaternary rates on major faults and the far field plate motion are used to determine crustal kinematics in the collision zone between india and asia using a finite element formalism to construct a spherical shell model of the asian continent with embedded faults we seek a velocity solution approaching the motion of rigid blocks by minimizing the elastic strain energy in the fault bounded blocks by doing so we test the assumption that long term deformation within continents is mostly localized into major faults in the solution fault motion accounts for more than 80 of the deformation allowing us to describe our velocity model in terms of quasi rigid block rotations on the sphere south china is rotating clockwise about a pole located southwest of borneo implying an e ese velocity vector of 11 mm yr for a point at shanghai in agreement with the velocity vector determined by very long baseline interferometry heki et al 1995 the eastward movement of south china is accommodated by oblique extension along the red river fault at a rate of 10 5 mm yr in the south and by the combination of left lateral strike slip motion on the qinling dabie shan fault and the counterclockwise rotation of the ordos and adjacent blocks in the north the tarim rotates clockwise with respect to dzungaria about a pole located at 44 n 92 e consistent with increasing crustal shortening toward the west throughout the tien shan assuming incompressibility a crustal volume budget over a domain encompassing the tertiary mountain ranges in asia shows that over the last 10 000 years 73 4 of the north south shortening between india and asia has been absorbed by thickening of the lithosphere and 27 has been accommodated by lateral extrusion of continental blocks the present day predominance of thickening in asia results from the relatively slow eastward motion of south china controlled by strike slip faulting in the qinling shan and oblique extension in northeastern china

constraints on 2004 sumatra andaman earthquake rupture from gps measurements in andaman nicobar islands the 26 december 2004 sumatra andaman earthquake mw 9 0 9 3 is the greatest earthquake of the modern seismological era the rupture characteristics of the earthquake particularly in the andaman nicobar region are not well resolved from seismological or far field geodetic data here in this article we present campaign mode global positioning system gps measurements of coseismic displacements at 13 sites in the andaman nicobar islands before and after the 2004 sumatra andaman earthquake these measurements provide improved estimates of rupture characteristics in the region coseismic horizontal ground displacement of 1 5 6 5 m towards the southwest and coseismic vertical displacement mostly subsidence of 0 5 2 8 m occurred along the andaman nicobar islands with maximum displacements in the nicobar islands we estimate coseismic slip under the andaman and nicobar islands as 3 8 7 9 m and 11 15 m respectively the length of the rupture is estimated to be about 1500 km with a width varying from 120 km under middle andaman island to 160 km under great nicobar island gps measurements during january 11 22 2005 from port blair suggest rapid afterslip in the postseismic period limited gps data available from 1995 measurements at two sites in andaman provide evidence of strain accumulation that varied significantly in the 10 yr preceding the earthquake d 2005 elsevier b v all rights reserved

seismic slip deficit in the kashmir himalaya from gps observations 1 gps measurements in kashmir himalaya reveal range normal convergence of 11 1 mm yr with dextral shear of 5 1 mm yr the transition from a fully locked 170 km wide decollement to the unrestrained descending indian plate occurs at 25 km depth over an 23 km wide transition zone the convergence rate is consistent with the lower bounds of geological estimates for the main frontal thrust riasi and balapora fault systems on which no surface slip has been reported in the past millennium of the 14 damaging kashmir earthquakes since 1123 none may have exceeded mw 7 6 therefore either a seismic moment deficit equivalent to a mw 8 7 earthquake exists or the historical earthquake magnitudes have been underestimated alternatively these earthquakes have occurred on reverse faults in the kashmir valley and the decollement has been recently inactive although this can reconcile the inferred and theoretical moment release it is quantitatively inconsistent with observed fault slip in kashmir

continuous gps array and present day crustal deformation of japan a gps array with about 1 000 permanent stations is under operation in japan the gps array revealed coseismic deformations associated with large earthquakes and ongoing secular deformation in the japanese islands based on daily coordinate data of the gps stations strain rate distribution is estimated most regions with a large strain rate are related to plate boundaries and active volcanoes in addition the niigata kobe tectonic zone nktz is recognized as a region of large strain rate along the japan sea coast and in the northern chubu and kinki districts this newly found tectonic zone may be related to a hypothetical boundary between the eurasian or amurian and the okhotsk or north america plates precise observation of crustal deformation provides important boundary conditions on numerical modeling of earthquakes and other crustal activities appropriate computation methods of continuous deformation field are directly applicable to data assimilation for such numerical simulations

gps measurements of present day convergence across the nepal himalaya the high elevations of the himalaya and tibet result from the continuing collision between india and asia which started more than 60 million years ago1 4 from geological and seismic studies of the slip rate of faults in asia5 it is believed that approximately one third of the present day convergence rate between india and asia 58 4mmyr 1 is responsible for the shortening uplift and moderate seismicity of the himalaya great earthquakes also occur infrequently in this region releasing in minutes the elastic strain accumulated near the boundary zone over several centuries and accounting for most of the advance of the himalaya over the plains of india the recurrence time for these great earthquakes is determined by the rate of slip of india beneath tibet which has hitherto been estimated indirectly from global plate motions6 from the slip rates of faults in asia7 8 from seismic productivity9 and from the advance of sediments on the northern ganges plain10 here we report geodetic measurements using the global positioning system gps of the rate of contraction across the himalaya which we find to be 17 52 2 mm yr 1 from the form of the deformation field we estimate the rate of slip of india beneath tibet to be 20 5 2 mmyr 1 strain sufficient to drive one or more great himalayan earthquakes with slip similar to that accompanying the magnitude 8 1 bihar nepal 1934 earthquake may currently be available in western nepal

intraplate deformation of the indian subcontinent 1 while deformation at the earth s surface primarily occurs along tectonic plate boundaries major earthquakes have shaken regions deep within continental interiors three of the largest m 7 5 historic intraplate earthquakes occurred within the indian subcontinent suggesting the possibility of significant intraplate deformation we consider surface velocities determined from new gps data collected at 29 continuous gps stations and 41 survey mode gps stations in india between 1995 and 2007 to find a north south shortening rate of 0 3 0 05 nanostrain yr 1 which may be accommodated by 2 1 mm yr of more localized convergence across central india southward motions at 4 7 mm yr of sites on the shillong plateau in northeast india reflect rapid shortening and high earthquake hazard associated with active thrust faults bounding the plateau the width and magnitude of the elastic strain accumulation field across the himalaya varies little from 76 90 longitude but the strain is more broadly distributed and convergence rates are higher along the eastern 200 km of the range

evidence for large scale subglacial meltwater flood events in southern ontario and northern new york state flow line patterns constructed from the orientation of drumlin long axes are used to infer two major subglacial meltwater floods in southern ontario and northern new york state in this interpretation the flood waters of the first event the algonquin surged southward in the later ontarian event powerful floods streamed southwestward along the basins of lakes ontario and erie bedrock fluting upstream pointing noses on escarpments and tunnel channels give supporting evidence for the regional flood hypothesis regional distributions of drift thickness may be explained by this hypothesis