Citation

Khan MA. Nat. Hazards 1992; 5(2): 125-132.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1992, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/BF00127001

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The distinctive nature of the structure of the Earth's gravity field over high seismicity areas, as observed in some limited scale studies, indicates that it is possible to use these associative patterns to outline areas of high seismicity or high earthquake hazard potential from a knowledge of the finer structure of the Earth's gravity field. The global scale investigation of such relationships as a function of the geophysical characteristics of various tectonic provinces, and the parameterisation of such relationships by hypocentral depth and earthquake intensity/energy data, become even more attractive because of the availability of (1) satellite-determined gravity models which provide global information on the long wavelength components of the gravity field, (2) satellite altimetry data which provide oceanwide information on the detailed geoidal structure, (3) surface gravity data which provide information on the short wavelength components in the areas of surface gravity coverage, and (4) bathymetric and topographic data which, though still somewhat limited in spite of their recent extensions of coverage, are available in more and more areas and provide information on the tectonic and morphological environments of an area to enable its gravity data conversion to some standard environments for direct comparisons of underlying structures. Additionally, the rapidly mounting geological and geophysical evidence of considerable intraplate tectonic activity, not so fashionable until recently, makes the study of these correlative patterns even more attractive and productive from a scientific viewpoint. This paper presents the major elements of the theoretical formulation for conducting such investigations.

Language: en