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Published August 19, 2011 | Published
Journal Article Open

The 2001 M_w 7.6 Bhuj earthquake, low fault friction, and the crustal support of plate driving forces in India

Abstract

We present a source model for the 2001 M_w 7.6 Bhuj earthquake of northwest India. The slip distribution suggests a high stress drop (~35 MPa) and, together with the depth distribution of aftershocks, that the entire crust is seismogenic. We suggest that the active faults have an effective coefficient of friction of ~0.08, which is sufficient for the seismogenic crust to support the majority of the compressive force transmitted through the Indian lithosphere. This model is consistent with the midcrustal depth of the transition from extension to compression beneath the Ganges foreland basin where India underthrusts southern Tibet. If the coefficient of friction were the more traditional value of 0.6, the lithosphere would be required to support a net force roughly an order of magnitude higher than current estimates in order to match the observed depth of the neutral fiber.

Additional Information

© 2011 American Geophysical Union. Received 1 December 2010; accepted 7 June 2011; published 19 August 2011. We thank the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation for funding this study through the Caltech Tectonics Observatory and Pembroke College in the University of Cambridge for financial support to A.C. We are grateful to D. Schmidt and R. Bürgmann for providing us with their InSAR results. Two anonymous reviewers provided helpful comments on the manuscript.

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