Statistical Analysis of Seismic Data of Sree Subrahmanyaswami Temple, Payyanur, Kerala, India

Abstract

An investigation of the statistical analysis of earthquake catalogue and development of seismotectonic map for the low seismic region Kannur has been carried out in this paper. Total 502 events of different magnitude scales spanning from 1800 AD to 2024 AD were collected from different national and international sources. Events were homogenized into equivalent moment magnitude (Mw) using Scordilis(2006) relationship. Earthquake data were declustered using Urhammer method to exclude foreshocks and aftershocks within a time and space window and statistical analysis was done. Sources of earthquake events were extracted from Geological Survey of India. Seismotectonic map were developed using QGIS software using the extracted data. The Mc value in this instance is 3.0, falling inside the fulfilled limit. The seismicity parameters b and a values are 0.45 (higher frequency/seismically more active) and 4.0 (high frequency of small magnitude earthquake) correspondingly. b value is matching with lower value of 0.5 and a value is in median range of lower value of 2 to a higher value of 10. From the histogram, it can be deduced that a good number of earthquakes were reported from 1965, which was the beginning of the instrumental era. Prior to 1965, the earthquake reporting was poor and incomplete.