Seismic hazards assessment of Kumaun Himalaya and adjacent region

The ongoing continent–continent collision between Indian and Eurasian plates houses a seismic gap in the geologically complex and tectonically active central Himalaya. The seismic gap is characterized by unevenly distributed seismicity. The highly complex geology with equally intricate structural elements of Himalaya offers an almost insurmountable challenge to estimating seismogenic hazard using conventional methods of Physics. Here, we apply integrated unconventional hazard mapping approach of the fractal analysis for the past earthquakes and the box counting fractal dimension of structural elements in order to understand the seismogenesis of the region properly. The study area extends from latitude 28°N–33°N and longitude 76°E–81°E has been divided into twenty-five blocks, and the capacity fractal dimension (D 0 ) of each block has been calculated using the fractal box counting technique. The study of entire blocks reveal that four blocks are having very low value of D 0 (0.536, 0.550, 0.619 and 0.678). Among these four blocks two are characterized by intense clustering of earthquakes indicated by low value of correlation fractal dimension (D c ) (0.245, 0.836 and 0.946). Further, these two blocks are categorized as highly stressed zones and the remaining two are characterized by intense clustering of structural elements in the study area. Based on the above observations, integrated analysis of the D c of earthquakes and D 0 of structural elements has led to the identification of diagnostic seismic hazard pattern for the four blocks. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012