The time of occurrence and the magnitude of the largest aftershock over India

Summary The time of occurrence and the magnitude of the largest aftershock in relation to the main shock have been studied for India and its neighbourhood based on the USCGS data during the years 1963–1971. It is found that the largest aftershock occurs within 2 hours after the main shock in about 50% of the cases and frequency of occurrencen(t) of the largest aftershocks decreases hyper-bolically with the intervalt after the main event and could be represented by a law of the formn(t)=At ^–h whereA andh are constants. The probability of occurrence of the largest aftershock within 2 hours of the main shock is found to be higher over island are regions of the world. The difference (M ₀–M ₁) of the magnitude of the largest aftershockM ₁ to that of the main shockM ₀ as a measure of aftershock activity does not show any marked regional variation over India and its neighbourhood, as was reported by Mogifor Japan. Examination of the values ofM ₁/M ₀ and the constantb in Gutenberg-Richter's frequency magnitude relationship reveals a range of variation in both; high values ofM ₁/M ₀ have been found to be associated with high values ofb in many tectonic earthquakes and thus not, restricted to reservoir associated seismic activity.