Tarim Basin

Qaidam Basin

Ysk Köl Lake

Qinghai Lake

TALAS-FERGHANA FAULT

KARAKORAM FAULT 

Sichuan Basin

HAIYUAN FAULT 

Chai Wobaoho

 Lake 

Balkhash

KUNLUN FAULT

Main Pamir Thrust

Tian Shan

Pamir

Tibetan Plateau

2008

1902

1905

1911

1912

1918

1920

1927

1931

1932

1934

1935

1937

1946

1947

1949

1951

1952

1955

1956

1997

2001

2005

1950

Shymkent

Namangan

Andizhan

Samarkand

Yinchuan

Chandigarh

Quetta

Lhasa

Kathmandu

Rajshahi

Dzhambul Bishkek

Dushanbe

Xining

Srinagar

Peshawar

Rawalpindi

Amritsar

Patna

Varanasi

Mandalay

Urumqi

Almaty

Tashkent

Lanzhou

Kabul

Xi'an

Lahore

Faisalabad

Chengdu Chongqing

Jaipur

Lucknow

Kanpur

Kunming

Dhaka

Chittagong

Delhi

104° 106° 108° 110°

102°

102°

100°

100°

98°

98°

96°

96°

94°

94°

92°

92°

90°

90°

88°

88°

86°

86°

84°

84°

82°

82°

80°

80°

78°

78°

76°

76°

74°

74°

72°

72°

70°

70°

68°

68°

66°

38°

40°

42°

44°

46°

36°

36°

34°

34°

32°

32°

30°

30°

28°

28°

26°

24°

22°

20°

Scale 1:7 000 000 

U.S. Department of the Interior

U.S. Geological Survey

Seismicity of the Earth 1900–2010

Himalaya and Vicinity

2013

Compiled by Bethan Turner,1 Jennifer Jenkins,1 Rebecca Turner,1 Amy L. Parker,1 Gaven P. Hayes,2 Antonio Villaseñor,3 Richard L. Dart,2 Arthur C. Tarr,2 Kevin P. Furlong,3 and Harley M. Benz2

1Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom

2U.S. Geological Survey

3Institute of Earth Sciences, CSIC, Barcelona, Spain

4Department of Geosciences, Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA, United States

Publishing support provided by:

Denver Publishing Service Center

Manuscript approved on February 10, 2013

Any use of trade, product or firm names is for 

descriptive purposes only and does not imply 

endorsement by the U.S. Government.

Although this information product, for the most part, 

is in the public domain, it also contains copyrighted 

materials as noted in the text. Permission to reproduce

copyrighted items must be secured from the copyright owner.

Albers Equal Area Conic Projection

Digital map database and cartography by Arthur C. Tarr and Richard L. Dart 0 100 200 400 600 800 KILOMETERS

KAZAKHSTAN

KYRGYZSTAN

UZBEKISTAN

TAJIKISTAN

AFGHANISTAN

CHINA

INDIA

EURASIA PLATE

INDIA PLATE

PAKISTAN

BANGLADESH

BHUTAN

BURMA (MYANMAR)

NEPAL

CHAMAN FAULT

Sulaiman

Range

Hindu Kush Focus Inset Map

Hindu Kush

Hindu Kush

ALTYN TAGH FAULT

INDUS-TSANGPO SUTURE

Himalaya Front DAUKI THRUST

SAGAING FAULT

RED RIVER

FAULT

INDO-BURMESE

ARC

LONGMEN SHAN THRUST BELT

XIANSHUIHE-XIAOJIANG

FAULT

SYSTEM

Daofu

Kangding

Seismic Hazard and Relative Plate Motion

INDIA PLATE

43

48

38

Dhaka Patna

Delhi

Xi'an

Kabul

Khulna

Kanpur

Jhansi

Allahabad

Jaipur

Lahore

Xining

Almaty

Kunming

Guiyang

Chengdu

Lanzhou Bishkek

Mandalay

Calcutta

Amritsar

Peshawar Srinagar

Dushanbe

Tashkent

Hyderabad

Chongqing

Chittagong

Faisalabad

Rawalpindi

65° 70° 75° 80° 85° 90° 95° 100° 105° 110°

40°

45°

35°

30°

Scale 1:28 000 000 

0 200 400 600 800 1000 KILOMETERS

EURASIA PLATE TECTONIC SUMMARY

Seismicity in the Himalaya primarily results from the continental collision of the India and 

Eurasia plates, which are converging at a relative rate of 40–50 mm/yr. Approximately half of this 

convergence is accommodated across the Himalaya. Northward underthrusting of India beneath 

Eurasia generates numerous earthquakes and consequently makes this area one of the most 

seismically hazardous regions on Earth. The surface expression of the plate boundary is marked by 

the foothills of the north-south trending Sulaiman Range in the west, the Indo-Burmese Arc in the 

east and the east-west trending Himalaya Front in the north of India.

The India-Eurasia plate boundary is a diffuse boundary, which in the region near the north of 

India, lies within the limits of the Indus-Tsangpo (also called the Yarlung-Zangbo) Suture Zone to 

the north and the Main Frontal Thrust to the south. The Indus-Tsangpo Suture Zone is located 

roughly 200 km north of the Himalaya Front and is defined by an exposed ophiolite chain along its 

southern margin. The narrow (<200 km) Himalaya Front includes numerous east-west trending, 

parallel structures. This region has the highest rates of seismicity and largest earthquakes in the 

Himalaya region, caused mainly by movement on thrust faults. Examples of significant 

earthquakes, in this densely populated region, caused by reverse-slip movement include the 1934 

M8.1 Bihar, the 1905 M7.5 Kangra, and the 2005 M7.6 Kashmir earthquakes. The latter two 

resulted in the highest death tolls for Himalaya earthquakes seen to date, together killing over 

100,000 people and leaving millions homeless. The largest instrumentally recorded Himalaya 

earthquake occurred on 15 August 1950 in Assam, eastern India. This M8.6 right-lateral, strike-slip 

earthquake was widely felt over a broad area of central Asia, causing extensive damage to villages 

in the epicentral region.

The Tibetan Plateau is situated north of the Himalaya, stretching approximately 1,000 km 

north-south and 2,500 km east-west, and is geologically and tectonically complex with several 

sutures which are hundreds of kilometers long and generally trend east-west. The Tibetan Plateau 

is cut by a number of large (>1,000 km) east-west trending left-lateral strike-slip faults, including 

the Kunlun, Haiyuan, and the Altyn Tagh. Right-lateral strike-slip faults (comparable in size to the 

left-lateral faults) in this region include the Karakorum, Red River, and Sagaing. Secondary 

north-south trending normal faults also cut the Tibetan Plateau. Thrust faults are found towards the 

north and south of the Tibetan Plateau. Collectively, these faults accommodate crustal shortening 

associated with the ongoing collision of the India and Eurasia plates, with thrust faults accommodating north-south compression, and normal and strike-slip faults accommodating east-west extension.

Along the western margin of the India plate, in the vicinity of southeastern Afghanistan and 

western Pakistan, the India plate translates obliquely relative to the Eurasia plate, resulting in a 

complex fold-and-thrust belt known as the Sulaiman Range. Faulting in this region includes 

strike-slip, reverse-slip and oblique-slip motion and often results in shallow, destructive 

earthquakes. The active, left-lateral, strike-slip Chaman fault is the fastest moving fault in the 

region. In 1505, a segment of the Chaman fault near Kabul, Afghanistan, ruptured causing 

widespread destruction. In the same region the more recent 30 May 1935, M7.6 Quetta earthquake, 

which occurred in the Sulaiman Range in Pakistan, killed as many as 35,000 people.

On the northwestern side of the Tibetan Plateau, beneath the Pamir–Hindu Kush Mountains of 

northern Afghanistan, earthquakes occur at depths as great as 200 km as a result of remnant 

lithospheric subduction (see cross sections). Shallow crustal earthquakes also occur in this region 

near the Main Pamir Thrust and other active Quaternary faults. The Main Pamir Thrust, north of 

the Pamir Mountains, is an active shortening structure. The northern portion of the Main Pamir 

Thrust produces many shallow earthquakes, whereas its western and eastern borders display a 

combination of thrust and strike-slip mechanisms (Fan and others, 1994). On the 18 February 1911, 

the M7.4 Sarez earthquake ruptured in the Central Pamir Mountains, killing numerous people and 

triggering a landside, which blocked the Murghab River.

Further north, the Tian Shan is a seismically active intra-continental mountain belt, which 

extends 2,500 km in an ENE-WNW orientation north of the Tarim Basin. This belt is defined by 

numerous east-west trending thrust faults, creating a compressional basin-and-range landscape. It 

is generally thought that regional stresses associated with the collision of the India and Eurasia 

plates are responsible for faulting in the region. The region has had three major earthquakes 

(>M7.6) at the start of the 20th Century, including the 1902 Atushi earthquake,which killed an 

estimated 5,000 people. The range is cut through in the west by the 700-km-long, northwest-southeast striking, Talas-Ferghana active right-lateral, strike-slip fault system. Though the system has 

produced no major earthquakes in the last 250 years, paleoseismic studies indicate that it has the 

potential to produce M7.0+ earthquakes and it is thought to represent a significant hazard 

(Burtmen and others,1996).

The northern portion of the Tibetan Plateau itself is largely dominated by the motion on three 

large left-lateral, strike-slip fault systems: the Altyn Tagh, Kunlun and Haiyuan. The Altyn Tagh 

fault is the longest of these strike-slip faults and it is thought to accommodate a significant portion 

of plate convergence. However, this system has not undergone significant historical earthquakes, 

though paleoseismic studies show evidence of prehistoric M7.0–8.0 events (Washburn and others, 

2001). Thrust faults link with the Altyn Tagh at its eastern and western termini. The Kunlun Fault, 

south of the Altyn Tagh, is seismically active, producing large earthquakes such as the 8 November 

1997, M7.6 Manyi earthquake and the 14 November 2001, M7.8 Kokoxili earthquake. The 

Haiyuan fault, in the far northeast, generated the 16 December 1920, M7.8 earthquake that killed 

approximately 200,000 people and the 22 May 1927, M7.6 earthquake that killed 40,912.

The Longmen Shan thrust belt, along the eastern margin of the Tibetan Plateau, is an 

important structural feature and forms a transitional zone between the complexly deformed 

Songpan-Garze Fold Belt and the relatively undeformed Sichuan Basin. On 12 May 2008, the 

thrust belt produced the reverse slip, M7.9 Wenchuan earthquake, killing over 87,000 people and 

causing the equivalent of billions of U.S. dollars in damages and landslides, which dammed 

several rivers and lakes.

Southeast of the Tibetan Plateau are the right-lateral, strike-slip Red River and the left-lateral, 

strike-slip Xianshuihe-Xiaojiang fault systems. The Red River Fault underwent large scale, 

left-lateral ductile shear during the Tertiary period before changing to its present day right-lateral 

slip rate of approximately 5 mm/yr (Replumaz and others, 2001). This fault has produced several 

earthquakes >M6.0 including the 4 January 1970, M7.5 earthquake in Tonghai which killed over 

10,000 people. Since the start of the 20th century, the Xianshuihe-Xiaojiang Fault system has 

generated several M7.0+ earthquakes including the M7.5 Luhuo earthquake which ruptured on 22 

April 1973 (Allen and others, 1991). Some studies suggest that due to the high slip rate on this 

fault, future large earthquakes are highly possible along the 65 km stretch between Daofu and 

Qianning and the 135 km stretch that runs through Kangding.

Shallow earthquakes within the Indo-Burmese Arc, predominantly occur on a combination of 

strike-slip and reverse faults, including the Sagaing, Kabaw, and Dauki faults. Between 1930 and 

1956, six M7.0+ earthquakes occurred near the right-lateral Sagaing Fault, resulting in severe 

damage in Burma including the generation of landslides, liquefaction and the loss of 610 lives. 

Deep earthquakes (>200 km) have also been known to occur in this region, these are thought to be 

due to the subduction of the eastwards-dipping India plate, though whether subduction is currently 

active is debated. Within the pre-instrumental period, the large Shillong earthquake occurred on 12 

June 1897, causing widespread destruction.

DATA SOURCES

The earthquake locations shown on the main map (above) and on the depth profiles (right) are 

taken from the global 1900–2007 Centennial catalog (Engdahl and Villaseñor, 2002), a catalog of 

high-quality depth determinations for the period 1964–2002 (Engdahl, personal commun., 2003), 

and USGS-PDE (Preliminary Determination of Epicenters) for the years 2008–2010. Major 

earthquakes (7.5≤M≤8.2) are labeled with the year of occurrence, while earthquakes (8.0≤M≤8.2) 

are labeled with the year of occurrence and also denoted by a white outline (Tarr and others, 2010).

The nucleation points of great earthquakes (M≥8.3) are designated with a label showing the 

year of occurrence. Their rupture areas are shown as pink polygons. Major earthquakes (7.5≤M≤

8.2) are labeled with the year of occurrence.

The Seismic Hazard and Relative Plate Motion panel displays the generalized seismic hazard 

of the region (Giardini and others, 1999) and representative relative plate-motion vectors using the 

Morvel model (DeMets and others, 1994).

Base map data sources include GEBCO 2008 shaded relief, Volcanoes of the World dataset 

(Siebert and Simkin, 2002), plate boundaries (Bird, 2003), and geographic information from 

Digital Chart of the World (1992), and ESRI (2002). 

REFERENCES

Allen, C.R. Zhuoli, L., Hong, Q., Xueze, W., Huawei, Z., Weishi, H.,1991, Field study of a highly 

active fault zone—The Xianshuihe fault of southwestern China: Geological Society of 

America Bulletin, v. 103, p. 1178–1199.

Ambraseys, Nicholas, and Bilham, Roger, 2003, Earthquakes and crustal deformation in northern 

Baluchistan: Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, v. 93, no. 4, p. 1573–1605.

Bilham, Roger, Larson, K., Freymueller, J., and Project Idylhim members, 1997, GPS 

measurements of present-day convergence across the Nepal Himalaya: Nature (London), v. 

386, p. 61–64.

Billington, S., Isacks, B.I., Barazangi, M., 1977, Spatial and focal mechanisms of mantle 

earthquakes in the Hindu Kush–Pamir region—A contorted Benioff zone: Geology, v. 5, p. 

699–704.

Bird, Peter, 2003, An updated digital model of plate boundaries: Geochemistry Geophysics 

Geosystems, v. 4, no. 3, 52 p.

Burtmen, V.S, Skobelev, S.F., Molnar, P., 1996, Late Cenozoic slip on the Talas-Ferghana fault, the 

Tien Shan, central Asia: Geological Society of America Bulletin, v. 108, no. 8, p. 1004–1021.

Cavalié, O., Lasserre, C., Doin, M.P., Peltzer, G., Sun, J., Xu, X., Shen, Z.-K., 2008, Measurement 

of interseismic strain across the Haiyuan fault (Gansu, China), by In SAR: Earth and 

Planetary Science Letters, v. 275, p. 246–257.

Chen, W.-P. and Molnar, P., 1977, Seismic moments of major earthquakes and the average rate of 

slip in Central Asia: Journal of Geophysical Research, v. 82, p. 2945–2969.

Chen, S.F., Wilson, C.J.L., 1995, Emplacement of the Longmen Shan Thrust–Nappe Belt along the 

eastern margin of the Tibetan Plateau: Journal of Structural Geology, v. 18, p. 413–430.

Cowgill, E., Yin, A., Wang, X.F., and Zhang, Q., 2000, Is the North Altyn fault part of a strike-slip 

duplex along the Altyn Tagh fault system?: Geology, v. 28, no. 3, p. 255–258.

Daëron, M., Klinger, Y., Tapponnier, P., Elias, A., Jacques, E., and Sursock, A., 2005, Sources of 

the large A.D. 1202 and 1759 Near East earthquakes: Geology, v. 35, p. 755–758, 

doi:10.1130/G23631A.1.

DeMets, Charles, Gordon, R.G., Argus, D.F., and Stein, Seth, 1994, Effects of recent revisions to 

the geomagnetic time scale on estimates of current plate motions: Geophysical Research 

Letters, v. 21, p. 2191–2194.

Digital Chart of the World, 1992: Accessed July 5, 2012, at 

http://earth-info.nga.mil/publications/specs/printed/89009/89009_DCW.pdf.

Engdahl, E.R., and Villaseñor, Antonio, 2002, Global seismicity 1900‒1999, in Lee, W.H.K., 

Kanamori, Hiroo, Jennings, P.C., and Kisslinger, Carl, eds., International Handbook of 

Earthquake and Engineering Seismology, v. 81(A), chap. 41, p. 1‒26.

ESRI, 2002, ESRI data and maps: Redlands, Calif., ESRI, http://www.esri.com/data/data-maps.

Fan, G., Ni, J.F., Wallace, T.C., 1994, Active tectonics of the Pamirs and Karakorum: Journal of 

Geophysical Research, v. 99, p. 7131–7160.

GEBCO, 2008, The GEBCO_08_Grid, ver. 20091120: GEBCO. Accessed July 5, 2012, at 

http://www.gebco.net.

Giardini, D., Grünthal, G., Shedlock, K., Zhang, P., and Global Seismic Hazards Program, 1999, 

Global Seismic Hazards Map: Accessed on July 5, 2012, at 

http://www.seismo.ethz.ch/static/GSHAP/.

Hubbard, J., Shaw, J.H., 2009, Uplift of the Longmen Shan and Tibetan plateau, and the 2008 

Wenchuan (M = 7.9) earthquake: Nature, v. 458, p. 194–197.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 2010: National Geophysical data 

Center (NGDC): National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Accessed on Mar. 31, 

2010, at http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/ngdc.html.

Negredo, A.M., Replumaz, Ann, Villaseñor, Antonio, Guillot, Stéphane, 2007, Modeling the 

evolution of continental subduction processes in the Pamir–Hindu Kush region: Earth and 

Planetary Science Letters, v. 259, issues 1–2, p. 212–225.

Replumaz, Ann, Lacassin, R., Tapponier, P., Leloup, P.H., 2001, Large river offsets and 

Plio-Quaternary dextral slip rate on the Red River fault (Yunnan, China): Journal of 

Geophysical Research, v. 106, p. 819–836.

Siebert, Lee, and Simkin, Thomas, 2002, Volcanoes of the world—An illustrated catalog of Holocene 

volcanoes and their eruptions: Smithsonian Institution, Global Volcanism Program Digital 

Information Series, GVP-3. Accessed on Jan. 9, 2007, at http://www.volcano.si.edu/world

Szeliga, W.R., Bilham, Roger, Kakar, D.M., and Lodi, Sarosh, 2012, Interseismic strain 

accumulation along the western boundary of the Indian subcontinent: Journal of Geophysical 

Research, v. 117, B08404, doi:10.1029/2011JB008822.

Tarr, A.C., Villaseñor, Antonio, Furlong, K.P., Rhea, Susan, and Benz, H.M., 2010, Seismicity of 

the Earth 1900–2007: U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Map 3064, scale 

1:25,000,000.

Washburn, Zachary, Arrowmith, J.R., Forman, S.L., Cowgill, Eric, Xiaofeng, Wang, Yueqiao, 

Zhang, Zhengel, Chen, 2001, Late Holocene earthquake history of the central Altyn Tagh 

fault, China: Geology, v. 29, no. 11, p. 1051–1054.

FIGURE EXPLANATION

Country 

Boundary

Large Active

Fault

Suture

Plate boundaries

Subduction

Transform

Divergent

Others

Peak ground acceleration

0–0.2 m/s2

0.2–0.4

0.4–0.8

0.8–1.6

1.6–3.2

3.2–6.4

6.4–9.8

Relative plate 

motion in mm/yr

43

0

0

 100

 100

 -200 -200

-100 -100

 0 0

B B'

PROFILE B

Distance (km)

Depth (km)Depth (km)

0

0

 100

 100

 -200 -200

-100 -100

 0 0

A A'

PROFILE A

Distance (km)

B

B'

A

A'

76 ° E

75 ° E

75 ° E

74 ° E

74 ° E

73 ° E

73 ° E

72 ° E

72 ° E

71 ° E

71 ° E

70 ° E

70 ° E

39 ° N

39 ° N

38 ° N

38 ° N

37 ° N

37 ° N

36 ° N

36 ° N

0 25 50 75 100

Hindu Kush Focus Inset Map

TAJIKISTAN CHINA

AFGHANISTAN

PAKISTAN

Scale 1:3 000 000

KILOMETERS

The curved arc of deep earthquakes found in the Hindu Kush–Pamir region indicates the presence of a lithospheric body at depth, thought to be 

remnants of a subducting slab. The cross section through the Hindu Kush region suggests a near vertical, northerly dipping subducting slab (cross 

section A), whereas the cross section through the nearby Pamir region to the east indicates a much shallower dipping, southerly subducting slab 

(cross section B). Some models suggest the presence of two subduction zones with the Indian plate being subducted beneath the Hindu Kush 

region, and the Eurasian plate being subducted beneath the Pamir region. However, other models suggest that just one of the two plates is being 

subducted and that the slab has become contorted and overturned in places.

KARAKORAM FAULT

MAIN

PAMIR THRUST

Pamir

Profiles of earthquake and volcanoes are

constructed from the mapped data. Locations

of the profile intersection with the surface are

drawn in the map and labeled to coincide

with the profile label. Box defines extent of

earthquakes included in the profile. Length of

the profile graphic is the same as in the map.

Distance in kilometers from the trench axis is

indicated in the X direction, depth in

kilometers is indicated in the Y direction.

There is no vertical exaggeration. See

Explanation color key. Not all earth layers,

earthquake depths or magnitude, are visible

on every profile.

DEPTH PROFILE EXPLANATION

 -500 -400 -300 -200 -100 0

 -700

 -600

 -500

 -400

 -300

 -200

 -100

 0

X Distance (km) X'

TRENCH AXIS

Depth (km)

PROFILE X

Earth structure

Air

Crust

Upper mantle

Transition zone

Lower mantle

Depth of focus

0–69 km

70–299 km

300–700 km

Magnitude

4–5.9

6–6.4

6.5–6.9

7–7.4

7.5

7.6

7.7

7.8

7.9

8.0

8.1

8.2

Country 

Boundary

Large Active

Fault

Plate boundaries

Subduction

Transform

Divergent

Suture

0–69 km

70–299 km

300–700 km

Nucleation points

Rupture zones

Others

5.5–5.9

6–6.4

6.5–6.9

7–7.4

7.5

7.6

7.7

7.8

7.9

8.0

8.1

8.2

MAP EXPLANATION

Magnitude classes Depth of focus

Open-File Report 2010–1083-J

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Suggested citation:

Turner, Bethan, Jenkins, Jennifer, Turner, Rebecca, Parker, 

A.L., Hayes, G.P., Villaseñor, Antonio, Dart, R.L., Tarr, A.C., 

Furlong, K.P., and Benz, H.M., 2013, Seismicity of the Earth 

1900–2010 Himalaya and vicinity: U.S. Geological Survey 

Open-File Report 2010–1083-J, scale 1:9,000,000,

http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2010/1083/J