India plate angular velocity and contemporary deformation rates from continuous GPS measurements from 1996 to 2015

Abstract

We estimate a new angular velocity for the India plate and contemporary deformation rates in the plate interior and along its seismically active margins from Global Positioning System (GPS) measurements from 1996 to 2015 at 70 continuous and 3 episodic stations. A new India-ITRF2008 angular velocity is estimated from 30 GPS sites, which include stations from western and eastern regions of the plate interior that were unrepresented or only sparsely sampled in previous studies. Our newly estimated India-ITRF2008 Euler pole is located significantly closer to the plate with ~3% higher angular velocity than all previous estimates and thus predicts more rapid variations in rates and directions along the plate boundaries. The 30 India plate GPS site velocities are well fit by the new angular velocity, with north and east RMS misfits of only 0.8 and 0.9 mm/yr, respectively. India fixed velocities suggest an approximate of 1–2 mm/yr intra-plate deformation that might be concentrated along regional dislocations, faults in Peninsular India, Kachchh and Indo-Gangetic plain. Relative to our newly-defined India plate frame of reference, the newly estimated velocities for 43 other GPS sites along the plate margins give insights into active deformation along India’s seismically active northern and eastern boundaries.

Himalayan earthquakes: a review of historical seismicity and early 21st century slip potential

“…It will conclude with an attempt to distinguish between uncertain seismic futures for the Himalaya. recurrence interval of earthquakes in the Himalaya, but although India is effectively rigid to within a few millimetres (Paul et al 1995;Banerjee et al 2008;Jade et al 2017), the collisional velocity along the Himalaya is reduced by the absorption of more than half of this convergence as internal deformation within Asia. Prior to the availability of GPS geodesy, this relative velocity was known only indirectly through global plate-closure summations (Molnar & Stock 2009), there being no spreading centre between the two plates.…”

Geodetic Evidence of High Compression Across Seismically Active Kachchh Paleorift, India

“…We subtracted the velocity prediction of the estimated Euler pole and calculated the average residual (square root of the sum of the north and east velocity components' squares) at GPS sites in the Kachchh region, corresponding to each estimate of the Euler pole, after converting the ITRF velocity in the same reference frame in which the Euler pole is defined. The average residual motion for the Euler pole estimates by Jade et al (), Banerjee et al (), Mahesh et al (), Jade et al (), and Ader et al () is 1.72, 1.91, 1.27, 1.43, and 1.14 mm/year, respectively. The estimates of site motion in Indian reference frame corresponding to each Euler pole are shown in Figure S1 in the supporting information.…”

Active tectonics of Himalaya, rift basins in Central India and those related to crustal deformation at different time scales

“…The dislocation model (inverse modeling of GPS deformation rates) of Jade et al (2017) proposed that the MFT has remained locked over a width of ~110 km from the surface to a depth of 16 km in Garhwal Himalaya with associated dip-slip rate of ~16 mm/ year and width of ~110 km from the surface to a depth of ~20 km in Kumaun Himalaya with associated dip-slip rate of ~18 mm/year. A well constrained, GPSderived surface arc-normal shortening rate of ~10-11 mm/year in Garhwal, ~12 mm/year in the Gori valley and ~14 mm/year in the Kali Valley of Kumaun Himalaya, was estimated by Jade et al (2016).…”

“…The monitoring of crustal motion from continuous GPS measurements has been enhanced since past one decades which provides a better constraint of Euler pole of India and useful to describe the plate interior deformation. Jade et al (2017) have used velocity solution derived from GPS measurements, for the period from 1996 to 2015, at 73 sites situated within India plate zone and have estimated a new angular velocity for the India plate. The newly derived Euler pole of India suggests significant active deformation (10-20 mm/yr) along the northern and eastern India plate boundaries and a low rate (1-2 mm/yr) of intra-plate deformation along the major faults in Peninsular India, Kachchh and Indo-Gangetic plain.…”