Earthquake precursory studies at Amritsar Punjab, India using radon measurement techniques

Abstract

The continuous soil gas radon and daily monitoring of radon concentration in water is carried out at Amritsar (Punjab, India), a well known seismic zone to study the correlation of radon anomalies in relation to seismic activities in the study area. In this study, radon monitoring in soil was carried out by using barasol probe (BMC2) manufactured by Algade France whereas the radon content in water was recorded using RAD7 radon monitoring system of Durridge Company USA. The radon anomalies observed in the region have been correlated with the seismic events of M ≥ 2 recorded in NW Himalayas by Wadia Institute of Himalayas Geology Dehradun and Indian Meteorological Department, New Delhi. The effect of meteorological parameters; temperature, pressure, wind velocity and rainfall on radon emission has been studied. The correlation coefficient between radon and meteorological parameters has been calculated. Correlation coefficients (R) between radon anomaly (A), epicentral distance (D), earthquake magnitude (M) and precursor time (T) are evaluated. The constants in the empirical equations between earthquake magnitude, epicentral distance and precursor time has been calculated in the present study and compared with the earlier studies in NW Himalayas.   Key words: Radon, NW Himalayas, barasol probe, RAD7 and earthquake precursor.