25 April 2015 Gorkha Earthquake in Nepal Himalaya (Part 2)

Journal Article · Thu Jun 15 04:00:00 EDT 2017 · Journal of Asian Earth Sciences

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jseaes.2017.05.038· OSTI ID:1479317

Rao, N. Purnachandra; Burgmann, Roland; Mugnier, Jean-Louis; Gahalaut, Vineet; Pandey, Anand

The response from the geosciences community working on Himalaya in general, and the 2015 Nepal earthquakes in specific, was overwhelming, and after a rigorous review process, thirteen papers were selected and published in Part-1. We are still left with a few good papers which are being brought out as Part–2 of the special issue. Here, we describe how in the opening article Jean-Louis Mugnier and colleagues attempt to provide a structural geological perspective of the 25 April 2015 Gorkha earthquake and highlight the role of segmentation in generating the Himalayan mega-thrusts. They could infer segmentation by stable barriers in the HT that define barrier-type earthquake families. In yet another interesting piece of work, Pandey and colleagues map the crustal structure across the earthquake volume using Receiver function approach and infer a 5-km thick low velocity layer that connects to the MHT ramp. They are also able to correlate the rupture termination with the highest point of coseismic uplift. The last paper by Shen et al. highlights the usefulness of INSAR technique in mapping the coseismic slip distribution applied to the 25 April 2015 Gorkha earthquake. Finally, they infer low stress drop and corner frequency which coupled with hybrid modeling explain the low level of slip heterogeneity and frequency of ground motion.

• Research Organization: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC)
• DOE Contract Number: AC02-05CH11231
• OSTI ID: 1479317
• Journal Information: Journal of Asian Earth Sciences, Journal Name: Journal of Asian Earth Sciences Journal Issue: PB Vol. 141; ISSN 1367-9120
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English