Seismotectonic mapping and energy release analysis for Ongole city of Andhra Pradesh, India

Abstract

An updated homogenised earthquake catalogue comprising 753 events from 1800 AD to 2021 AD for Ongole city andhra Pradesh, was compiled for a circular buffer zone of radius 500km with collector office (Lat 15.49880 N and Long 80.04970 E) as the centre. Dependent events were declustered using the Uhrhammer algorithm and the degree of completeness was computed using CUVI and Stepp’s methods. The analysis shows that around 11% of events were foreshocks and aftershocks. The degree of completeness for the magnitude range of 3.0 ≤ Mw < 3.5, 3.5 ≤ Mw < 4.0, 4.0 ≤ Mw < 4.5, 4.5 ≤ Mw < 5.0, 5.0 ≤ Mw < 5.5 and Mw ≥ 5.5 was found to be 23, 56, 56, 63, 105 and 178 years based on CUVI method and 30, 30, 60, 60, 110 and 160 years as per Stepp’s method respectively. Values of the seismicity parameters a and b based on Gutenberg-Ritcher’s recurrence relationship for the study area were 4.02 and 0.83 respectively. Based on the current study, the maximum earthquake magnitude (Mmax) computed for the Ongole city is 7±0.27 on the moment magnitude scale and cumulative seismic energy release is 2.73x1016J. Finally, a seismotectonic map has been developed in ArcGIS 10.5.1 software comprising past seismicity, regional geology and faults details.