Aftershock activity of Bhuj earthquake of january 26th, 2001

Following a large-sized Bhuj earthquake (M _s = 7.6) of January 26th, 2001, a small aperture 4-station temporary local network was deployed, in the epicentral area, for a period of about three weeks and resulted in the recording of more than 1800 aftershocks (-0.07 ≤M _L <5.0). Preliminary locations of epicenters of 297 aftershocks (2.0 ≤M _L <5.0) have brought out a dense cluster of aftershock activity, the center of which falls 20 km NW of Bhachau. Epicentral locations of after-shocks encompass a surface area of about 50 × 40 km² that seems to indicate the surface projection of the rupture area associated with the earthquake. The distribution of aftershock activity above magnitude 3, shows that aftershocks are nonuniformly distributed and are aligned in the north, northwest and northeast directions. The epicenter of the mainshock falls on the southern edge of the delineated zone of aftershock activity and the maximum clustering of activity occurs in close proximity of the mainshock. Well-constrained focal depths of 122 aftershocks show that 89% of the aftershocks occurred at depths ranging between 6 and 25 km and only 7% and 4% aftershocks occur at depths less than 5 and more than 25 km respectively. The Gutenberg-Richter (GR) relationship, logN = 4.52 - 0.89M_L, is fitted to the aftershock data (1.0<-M _L<5.0) and theb-value of 0.89 has been estimated for the aftershock activity.