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The stress drop and average dislocation of some earthquakes in the Indian sub-continent

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Summary

The stress drop and average dislocation of some earthquakes in the Indian sub-continent have been determined after deducing the relationship between the aftershock areaA, and the magnitudeM L of the main shock which is given by

$$\log A = 0.89M_L - 2.67 for 5 \leqslant M_L \leqslant 7.$$

It has been found that the stress drop is considerably larger for the great Assam earthquake of 15 August, 1950, occurring near the continent-continent boundary of the Indian-Eurasian plates, compared to that of a similar magnitude earthquake in a continent-island are type collision boundary in the Pacific (near Japan). The stress drop in smaller events of comparative magnitude in different regions are, however, of the same order and thus do not bring out the distinguishing features of the source regions in different kinds of plate boundaries.

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Tandon, A.N., Srivastava, H.N. The stress drop and average dislocation of some earthquakes in the Indian sub-continent. PAGEOPH 112, 1051–1057 (1974). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00881507

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