New Delhi, Scientists have warned that geological features and activities in Himalayas could cause major earthquakes in the region that separates Indian subcontinent from Tibetan Plateau. Geophysicists from the Stanford University observed that the Himalayan range was formed, and remains currently active, due to the collision of the Indian and Asian continental plates.
Scientists recently began studying the complexity of this volatile collision zone in greater detail, particularly the fault that separates the two plates, the Main Himalayan Thrust (MHT). Scientists have known for some time that India is subducting under Asia.
Previous observations had indicated a relatively uniform fault plane that dipped a few degrees to the north. Warren Caldwell, a geophysics doctoral researcher at Stanford, has analyzed seismic data from 20 seismometers deployed for two years across the Himalayas by the National Geophysical Research Institute of India to produce a clearer picture of the fault.
The data imaged a thrust dipping a gentle two to four degrees northward, as has been previously inferred, but also revealed a segment of the thrust that dips more steeply (15 degrees downward) for 20 kilometres.
A magnitude 6.9 earthquake centered near Sikkim, India, along Nepal's eastern border that reportedly killed 53 and destroyed more than 100,000 homes in September 2011, highlights the significant quake hazard the region faces as enormous patches of Earth's crust collide and dive under one another.
