IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v444y2006i7116d10.1038_nature05199.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Great Himalayan earthquakes and the Tibetan plateau

Author

Listed:
  • Nicole Feldl

    (University of Colorado)

  • Roger Bilham

    (University of Colorado)

Abstract

It has been assumed that Himalayan earthquakes are driven by the release of compressional strain accumulating close to the Greater Himalaya. However, elastic models of the Indo–Asian collision using recently imaged subsurface interface geometries suggest that a substantial fraction of the southernmost 500 kilometres of the Tibetan plateau participates in driving great ruptures. We show here that this Tibetan reservoir of elastic strain energy is drained in proportion to Himalayan rupture length, and that the consequent growth of slip and magnitude with rupture area, when compared to data from recent earthquakes, can be used to infer a ∼500-year renewal time for these events. The elastic models also illuminate two puzzling features of plate boundary seismicity: how great earthquakes can re-rupture regions that have already ruptured in recent smaller earthquakes and how mega-earthquakes with greater than 20 metres slip may occur at millennia-long intervals, driven by residual strain following many centuries of smaller earthquakes.

Suggested Citation

  • Nicole Feldl & Roger Bilham, 2006. "Great Himalayan earthquakes and the Tibetan plateau," Nature, Nature, vol. 444(7116), pages 165-170, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:444:y:2006:i:7116:d:10.1038_nature05199
    DOI: 10.1038/nature05199
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature05199
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/nature05199?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tom R. Robinson, 2020. "Scenario ensemble modelling of possible future earthquake impacts in Bhutan," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 103(3), pages 3457-3478, September.
    2. Basab Mukhopadhyay & Anshuman Acharyya & Sujit Dasgupta, 2011. "Potential source zones for Himalayan earthquakes: constraints from spatial–temporal clusters," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 57(2), pages 369-383, May.
    3. A. Vanuvamalai & K. P. Jaya & V. Balachandran, 2018. "Seismic performance of tunnel structures: a case study," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 93(1), pages 453-468, August.
    4. A. Mahajan & V. Thakur & Mukat Sharma & Mukesh Chauhan, 2010. "Probabilistic seismic hazard map of NW Himalaya and its adjoining area, India," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 53(3), pages 443-457, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:444:y:2006:i:7116:d:10.1038_nature05199. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.