Characteristic behavior of water radon associated with Wenchuan and Lushan earthquakes along Longmenshan fault

Chunguo Liu, Shouwen Ji, Anhua He, Ramesh P. Singh, & Qing Ye

Published May 1, 2015, SCEC Contribution #6128

This paper discusses comparison of recent observed ground motion parameters
of Gorkha Nepal earthquake of April 25, 2015 (Mw 7.8) with the predicted ground motion
parameters using existing attenuation relation of the Himalayan region. The earthquake
took about 8000 lives and destroyed thousands of buildings of poor quality, and the
earthquake was felt by millions of people living in Nepal, China, India, Bangladesh, and
Bhutan. The knowledge of ground parameters is very important in developing seismic code
of seismic-prone regions like Himalaya for better design of buildings. The ground
parameters recorded in recent earthquake event and aftershocks are compared with
attenuation relations for the Himalayan region, and the predicted ground motion parameters
show good correlation with the observed ground parameters. The results discussed in
this paper will be of great use to civil engineers in updating existing building codes in the
Himalayan and surrounding regions and also for the evaluation of seismic hazards. The
results clearly show that the attenuation relation developed for the Himalayan region
should only be used, and other attenuation relations based on other regions fail to provide
good estimate of observed ground motion parameters.

Key Words
Radon water, Wenchuan earthquake, Lushan earthquake, water level, Longmenshan fault

Citation
Liu, C., Ji, S., He, A., Singh, R. P., & Ye, Q. (2015). Characteristic behavior of water radon associated with Wenchuan and Lushan earthquakes along Longmenshan fault. Radiation Measurements, 76, 44-53. doi: 10.1016/j.radmeas.2015.04.001.