Dr AMBEDKAR INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

Department of civil engineering

ENGINEERING SEISMOLOGY

SUBMITTED FROM UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF

Name-CHANDAN.C MARY BHAGYA JYOTHI
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
Usn-1DA15CV020
Contents
• INTRODUCTION
• A LIST OF NATURAL AND MAN-MADE EARTHQUAKE SOURCES 
• THEORY OF PLATE TECTONICS 
• SEISMIC WAVES 
• EARTHQUAKE SIZE 
• ISOSEISMAL MAP
•  INTERNAL STRUCTURE OF THE EARTH 
• SEISMICITY OF INDIA 
• CLASSIFICATION OF EARTHQUAKES 
Contents
• INTRODUCTION
• A LIST OF NATURAL AND MAN-MADE EARTHQUAKE SOURCES 
• THEORY OF PLATE TECTONICS 
• SEISMIC WAVES 
• EARTHQUAKE SIZE 
• ISOSEISMAL MAP
•  INTERNAL STRUCTURE OF THE EARTH 
• SEISMICITY OF INDIA 
• CLASSIFICATION OF EARTHQUAKES 
INTRODUCTION
• Seismology is the study of the generation,
propagation and recording of elastic waves
in the earth, and the sources that produce
them
• An earthquake is a sudden tremor or
movement of the earth's crust, which
originates naturally at or below the
surface.
• About 90% of all earthquakes result from
tectonic events, primarily movements on
the faults. The remaining is related to
volcanism, collapse of subterranean
cavities or man made effects.
• Tectonic earthquakes are triggered when
the accumulated strain exceeds the
shearing strength of rocks.
 A LIST OF NATURAL AND MAN-MADE EARTHQUAKE
SOURCES 

Natural Source Man-made Source 

• Tectonic Earthquakes • Controlled Sources (Explosives)
• Volcanic Earthquakes  • Reservoir Induces Earthquakes
• Rock Falls/Collapse of Cavity • Mining Induces Earthquakes
• Microseism
• Cultural Noise (Industry. Traffic,
etc.) 
THEORY OF PLATE TECTONICS 
• The epicentres of earthquakes are not
randomly distributed over the earth's
surface. They tend to be concentrated in
narrow zones.
•  India was located roughly 6,400 km south
of the Eurasian continent, moving north
ward at a rate of about 9 m a century.
•   Immense Himalayan mountain range began
to form between 40 and 50 million years
ago, when two large landmasses, India and
Eurasia, driven by plate movement, collided.
Both these continen tal landmasses have
same rock density,
  SEISMIC WAVES 
IT IS CLASSIFIED INTO TWO GROUPS:

1. BODY WAVES: which travel through the earth Schematic

representation of all directions and to all depths. Body waves are
used for resource exploration purposes and for the study of
earthquakes.
2. SURFACE WAVES: whose propagation is limited to a volume of
rock within a few seismic wavelengths of the earth's surface.
Surface waves are used to delineate the layered-earth structure. 

The uses and analysis methods for the two

types of waves are substantially different.
Body Waves 
• Two types of body waves exist:
1. Compressional waves (P)
2. Shear waves (S)
P-waves
• P-waves are similar to sound waves. They obey
all the physical laws of the science of acoustics.
• The mass particle motion of a P-wave is in the
direction of the propagation of the wave.
• In addition, P-waves cause a momentary
volume change in the material through which
they pass, but no concomitant momentary
shape change occurs in the material.
 S-WAVES
• S-waves, or shear waves, as they are commonly called,
move in a direction perpendicular to the direction of
particle motion.
• Vertically and horizontally polarised S-waves are
known as  SV-wave and SH-wave, respectively.
• They are sometimes called secondary waves because
they travel more slowly than P-waves in the same
material.
• The velocity of S-wave is directly related to the shear
strength of materials. S-waves do not propagate
through fluids as those do not have any shear strength.
Surface waves
• Surface Waves A disturbance at the free surface of a
medium propagates away from its source partly as seismic
surface waves. Surface waves, sometimes known as L-
waves.
• They are classified into two types
1. Rayleigh waves (LK)
2. Love waves (LW)
These surface waves are distinguished from each
other by the type of motion of particles on their
wavefronts. 
EARTHQUAKE SIZE  (INTENSITY)
• Seismic intensity scale is a way of
measuring or rating the effects of an
earthquake at different sites.
• The assignment of intensity of an
earthquake does not require any
instrumental records. It depends very
much on the acuity of the observer, and is
in principle subjective.
• Seismic risk maps are useful in planning safe
sites for important structures like nuclear power
plants or large dams.
• Risk maps are also valuable to insurance
companies. Intensity data is also important in
determination of historic seismicity of a region. 
TYPES OF STRUCTURES (BUILDINGS)
TYPE OF DEFINITION
STRUCTURES
A Buildings in fieldstone, rural structures, unburnt-
brick houses, clay houses.
B Ordinary brick buildings, buildings of the large-
block and prefabricated type, half-timbered
structures, buildings in natural hewn stone
C Reinforced buildings, well-built wooden
structures. 
Classification of damage to buildings
GRADE DEFINITIONS DESCRIPTIONS
G1 Slight damage Fine cracks in the plaster, fall of small pieces of
plaster
G2 Moderate  Small cracks in walls: fall of fairly damaged
damage  large Pieces of plaster, pantiles slip off: cracks
in chimneys: Parts of chimney brakes. 
G3 Heavy Large and deep cracks in walls: fall of
damage  chimneys 
G4 Destruction Gaps in walls: parts of buildings may collapse:
Separat parts of the building lose their
cohesion; and in walls collapse.
G5 Total damage Total collapse of buildings. 
ISOSEISMAL MAP
• A contour on a map bounding areas of
equal intensity is an isoseismal and a map
having different isoseismals for a
particular earthquake is an isoseismal
map. 
Earthquake Magnitude
Earthquake magnitude is a measure of the
amount of energy released during an
earthquake Depending on the size, nature,
and location of an earthquake,
Richter magnitude (M)
One of Dr Charles E Richter's most valuable
contributions was to recognize that the
seismic waves radiated by earthquakes
could provide good estimates of their
magnitudes. Richter (1935) collected the
recordings of seismic waves from a large
number of carthquakes
Surface wave magnitude 
As more seismograph stations were
installed around the world, it became
apparent that the method developed by
Richter was strictly valid only for certain
frequency and distance ranges.
Body wave magnitude (mp)
Gutenberg (1945) developed body wave
magnitude mg for teleseismic body-waves such
as P, PP and S in the period range 0.5 s to 12 s.
It is based on theoretical amplitude calculations
corrected for geometric spreading and attenuation
and then adjusted to empirical observations from
shallow and deep-focus earthquakes. 
Duration magnitude (MD)
Duration magnitude (MD) Analogue paper
and tape recordings have a very limited
dynamic range of only about 40 dB and 60
dB, respectively. M, cannot be determined
since these records are often clipped in case
of strong and near earthquakes.
Moment magnitude
Moment magnitude In case of large
earthquakes, the various magnitude scales
( M m or Ms) based on ma amplitude and
period of body waves or surface waves
under estimate the energy release to
saturation.
 INTERNAL STRUCTURE OF THE EARTH 
The delineation of internal structure of the
Earth, different discontinuities and nature of
material between two major discontinuities
is mainly based on the analysis of the
recorded reflected and refracted seismic
waves.
CRUST
Crust Andrija Mohorovicic (1909) found only
direct P-wave (Pg) arrivals near the
epicentre during the analysis of an
earthquake in Croatia.
UPPER MANTLE 
The Mohorovicic discontinuity defines the
top of the mantle. The average depth of
Moho is 35 km, although it is highly variable
laterally. Several discontinuities of seismic
wave velocity and velocity gradients exist in
the upper mantle.
Lower Mantle 
• The lower mantle lies just below the
important seismic discontinuity at 670
km. Its composition is rather poorly
known, but it is thought to be consisting
of oxides of iron and magnesium as well
as iron-magnesium silicates with a
perovskite structure.
Core
Core R.D. Oldham first detected the fluid
nature of the outer core seismologically in
1906. He observed that, if the travel times
of P-waves observed at epicentral distances
of less than 100° were extrapolated to
greater distances, the expected travel times
were less than those observed.
 SEISMICITY OF INDIA
SL NAME LOCATION YEAR MAGNITUDE DEATH
NO

1. KASHMIR EARTHQUAKE Srinagar/ J&k 1885 - 3000

2. SHILLONG EARTHQUAKE Shillong, plateau 1897 8.7 1600

3. KANGRA EARTHQUAKE Kangra,HP 1905 8.5 20000

4. BIHAR-NEPAL EARTHQUAKE Bihar-Nepal border region 1934 8.3 10000

5. ASSAM EARTHQUAKE Aassam 1950 8.5 1526

6. BIHAR-NEPAL EARTHQUAKE Bihar-nepal border region 1988 6.5 1000

7. INDO-BARMA EARTHQUAKE India-burma border 1988 7.3 -

8. UTTARKASHI EARTHQUAKE Uttarakashi,uttaranchal 1991 7.0 768

9. CHAMOLI EARTHQUAKE Chamoli,uttaranchal 1999 6.8 103

CLASSIFICATION OF EARTHQUAKES

1. Based on location  3. Based on focal depth 

(a) Interplate (a) Shallow depth 0–71 km
(b) (b) Intraplate  (b) Intermediate depth 71-300 km 

2. Based on epicentral distances  4. Based on magnitude 

(a) Local earthquake < 1° (a) Mircoearthquake < 3.0
(b) Regional earthquake 1 - 10°  (b) Intermediate earthquake 3-4 
(c) Teleseismic earthquake > 10°
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