The Main Himalayan Thrust beneath Nepal and Southern Tibet illuminated
by seismic ambient noise and teleseismic P wave coda autocorrelation
Abstract
Nepal is an actively deforming region due to its tectonic setting that
hosts many destructive earthquakes including the recent 2015 Mw 7.8
Gorkha earthquake. To better understand the physics of earthquakes and
their precise location as well as monitoring of seismicity and real-time
seismic hazard in the region, a highly resolved 3-D structure of the
crust is essential. This study presents a new 3-D S-wave velocity
structure of the crust using ambient noise tomography (ANT). This study
further constrains the discontinuities beneath Himalaya Nepal using
teleseismic P-wave coda autocorrelation. The results from the P-wave
coda autocorrelation identify major seismic discontinuities in the crust
including the Main Himalayan Thrust (MHT). The MHT with two ramps
correlates well with a low S-wave velocity layer obtained from the ANT.
The first ramp agrees with the duplex structure in the MHT beneath
Lesser Himalaya while the second connects flat low velocity beneath High
Himalaya to a broad low-velocity zone beneath South Tibet. The geometry
and extent of the High Himalaya low-velocity layer mimics the
decollement coupling zone inferred from GPS data with widths of 50-70 km
north of the nucleation of the 2015 Mw 7.8 Gorkha earthquake and 90-100
km north of the source of the Mw 8.4 1934 earthquake. The occurrence of
millenary Mw>9.0 earthquakes in Central and Eastern Nepal
would require either a wider coupling low velocity zone compared to the
ones identified in this work or the involvement of southernmost Tibet
low velocity decoupling zone so to store enough elastic energy.