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In the present study, cut slope stability assessment along ghat road section of Kolli hills was carried out by using various geotechnical parameters of rock and soil slope sections and structural kinematics of major discontinuities is presented. The rock slope (RS) stability assessment was carried out using Rock Mass Rating basic (RMR) and Slope Mass Rating (SMR) classification systems. The type of failure and their Factor of Safety (FOS) for individual RS was calculated using Hoek and Bray method. In the case of soil slopes (SS), the FOS was calculated using Circular Failure Chart (CFC) and Limit Equilibrium (LE) methods. The input data for the slope stability analyses were collected through extensive field work followed by stereonet plotting and laboratory test. There are six rock slope sections, and five soil slope sections were taken into consideration for the cut slope stability analyses. The area depicts class II (RS-1, 2, & 6) and class III (RS-3, 4, & 5) of RMR classes. The SMR result depicts for RS-1, RS-2, and RS-6 are 64.40, 60.02, and 60.70, respectively, and falls in class II stable condition. The SMR values of RS-3 and RS-5 were 44.33 and 57, respectively, and come under the class III partially stable condition. The RS-4 with SMR value of 17.33 falls under the class I completely unstable condition. The FOS of planar failure case indicates that RS-3 (FOS = 0.22) is more unstable, while all other sections are having greater than 1 FOS. The calculated FOS values using CFC method reveals that the FOS is very close to 1 for all the SS sections that fall under completely saturated condition which indicates that these slope sections may fail during heavy rainfall. In LE method, the sections SS-3 and SS-4 are unsafe under partially and completely saturated (natural slope) condition. In average slope condition, all the SS sections are unsafe under partially or completely saturated conditions. The facets 2, 3, 4, and 5 required mitigation measures, to improve the stability of slopes. Site-specific mitigation measures were suggested for partially or completely unstable rock and soil cut slopes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Western Ghats, the bold westerly escarpment of India paralleling the west coast, are characterized by different geologic and geomorphic units formed during different episodes of Earth's history. The majority of these present day landforms evolved in response to the tectonic activity that the Western Ghats witnessed during the Tertiary period. The major structural features together with the geomorphic units have predominant role in the occurrence of cataclysmic landslides which the windward slope of Western Ghats witness during the peak monsoon season. The Kerala and Periyar lineaments, which are the sites of minor earthquakes, pass through the study area. Escarpments and structural hill systems are the vulnerable landforms for landslide occurrence. Due to the predominant role of these tectonic and geomorphic features in the capricious change of landforms, a study was carried out in this hilly terrain based on geomorphology. The study of soil, slope morphometry, relative relief, land use/land cover and hydrogeological conditions together with a multidimensional analysis in a GIS environment resulted in classifying the entire area into different landslide susceptible zones based on Bureau of Indian Standards. Moreover, the area is also divided into three zones based on the terrain conditions and the type of landslide occurrence. The methodology can well fit with any area experiencing the same terrain conditions and can be used to classify an area on the basis of landslide occurrence and geomorphology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study presents the future seismic hazard map of Coimbatore city, India, by considering rupture phenomenon. Seismotectonic map for Coimbatore has been generated using past earthquakes and seismic sources within 300 km radius around the city. The region experienced a largest earthquake of moment magnitude 6.3 in 1900. Available earthquakes are divided into two categories: one includes events having moment magnitude of 5.0 and above, i.e., damaging earthquakes in the region and the other includes the remaining, i.e., minor earthquakes. Subsurface rupture character of the region has been established by considering the damaging earthquakes and total length of seismic source. Magnitudes of each source are estimated by assuming the subsurface rupture length in terms of percentage of total length of sources and matched with reported earthquake. Estimated magnitudes match well with the reported earthquakes for a RLD of 5.2% of the total length of source. Zone of influence circles is also marked in the seismotectonic map by considering subsurface rupture length of fault associated with these earthquakes. As earthquakes relive strain energy that builds up on faults, it is assumed that all the earthquakes close to damaging earthquake have released the entire strain energy and it would take some time for the rebuilding of strain energy to cause a similar earthquake in the same location/fault. Area free from influence circles has potential for future earthquake, if there is seismogenic source and minor earthquake in the last 20 years. Based on this rupture phenomenon, eight probable locations have been identified and these locations might have the potential for the future earthquakes. Characteristic earthquake moment magnitude ( M) of 6.4 is estimated for the seismic study area considering seismic sources close to probable zones and 15% increased regional rupture character. The city is divided into several grid points at spacing of 0.01° and the peak ground acceleration (PGA) due to each probable earthquake is calculated at every grid point in city by using the regional attenuation model. The maximum of all these eight PGAs is taken for each grid point and the final PGA map is arrived. This map is compared to the PGA map developed based on the conventional deterministic seismic hazard analysis (DSHA) approach. The probable future rupture earthquakes gave less PGA than that of DSHA approach. The occurrence of any earthquake may be expected in near future in these eight zones, as these eight places have been experiencing minor earthquakes and are located in well-defined seismogenic sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Earthquakes cause massive road damage which in turn causes adverse effects on the society. Previous studies have quantified the damage caused to residential and commercial buildings; however, not many studies have been conducted to quantify road damage caused by earthquakes. In this study, an attempt has been made to propose a new scale to classify and quantify the road damage due to earthquakes based on the data collected from major earthquakes in the past. The proposed classification for road damage due to earthquake is called as road damage scale (RDS). Earthquake details such as magnitude, distance of road damage from the epicenter, focal depth, and photographs of damaged roads have been collected from various sources with reported modified Mercalli intensity (MMI). The widely used MMI scale is found to be inadequate to clearly define the road damage. The proposed RDS is applied to various reported road damage and reclassified as per RDS. The correlation between RDS and earthquake parameters of magnitude, epicenter distance, hypocenter distance, and combination of magnitude with epicenter and hypocenter distance has been studied using available data. It is observed that the proposed RDS correlates well with the available earthquake data when compared with the MMI scale. Among several correlations, correlation between RDS and combination of magnitude and epicenter distance is appropriate. Summary of these correlations, their limitations, and the applicability of the proposed scale to forecast road damages and to carry out vulnerability analysis in urban areas is presented in the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The conventional Cornell's source-based approach of probabilistic seismic-hazard assessment (PSHA) has been employed all around the world, whilst many studies often rely on the use of computer packages such as FRISK (McGuire FRISK-a computer program for seismic risk analysis. Open-File Report 78-1007, United States Geological Survey, Department of Interior, Washington ) and SEISRISK III (Bender and Perkins SEISRISK III-a computer program for seismic hazard estimation, Bulletin 1772. United States Geological Survey, Department of Interior, Washington ). A 'black-box' syndrome may be resulted if the user of the software does not have another simple and robust PSHA method that can be used to make comparisons. An alternative method for PSHA, namely direct amplitude-based (DAB) approach, has been developed as a heuristic and efficient method enabling users to undertake their own sanity checks on outputs from computer packages. This paper experiments the application of the DAB approach for three cities in China, Iran, and India, respectively, and compares with documented results computed by the source-based approach. Several insights regarding the procedure of conducting PSHA have also been obtained, which could be useful for future seismic-hazard studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the results of probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA) for Bangalore, South India. Analyses have been carried out considering the seismotectonic parameters of the region covering a radius of 350 km keeping Bangalore as the center. Seismic hazard parameter ‘ b’ has been evaluated considering the available earthquake data using (1) Gutenberg–Richter (G–R) relationship and (2) Kijko and Sellevoll (1989, 1992) method utilizing extreme and complete catalogs. The ‘ b’ parameter was estimated to be 0.62 to 0.98 from G–R relation and 0.87 ± 0.03 from Kijko and Sellevoll method. The results obtained are a little higher than the ‘ b’ values published earlier for southern India. Further, probabilistic seismic hazard analysis for Bangalore region has been carried out considering six seismogenic sources. From the analysis, mean annual rate of exceedance and cumulative probability hazard curve for peak ground acceleration (PGA) and spectral acceleration (Sa) have been generated. The quantified hazard values in terms of the rock level peak ground acceleration (PGA) are mapped for 10% probability of exceedance in 50 years on a grid size of 0.5 km × 0.5 km. In addition, Uniform Hazard Response Spectrum (UHRS) at rock level is also developed for the 5% damping corresponding to 10% probability of exceedance in 50 years. The peak ground acceleration (PGA) value of 0.121 g obtained from the present investigation is slightly lower (but comparable) than the PGA values obtained from the deterministic seismic hazard analysis (DSHA) for the same area. However, the PGA value obtained in the current investigation is higher than PGA values reported in the global seismic hazard assessment program (GSHAP) maps of Bhatia et al. (1999) for the shield area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indian peninsular shield, which was once considered to be seismically stable, is experiencing many earthquakes recently. As part of the national level microzonation programme, Department of Science and Technology, Govt. of India has initiated microzonation of greater Bangalore region. The seismic hazard analysis of Bangalore region is carried out as part of this project. The paper presents the determination of maximum credible earthquake (MCE) and generation of synthetic acceleration time history plot for the Bangalore region. MCE has been determined by considering the regional seismotectonic activity in about 350 km radius around Bangalore city. The seismotectonic map has been prepared by considering the faults, lineaments, shear zones in the area and historic earthquake events of more than 150 events. Shortest distance from the Bangalore to the different sources is measured and then peak ground acceleration (PGA) is calculated for the different source and moment magnitude. Maximum credible earthquake found in terms of moment magnitude is 5.1 with PGA value of 0.146 g at city centre with assuming the hypo central distance of 15.88 km from the focal point. Also, correlations for the fault length with historic earthquake in terms of moment magnitude, yields (taking the rupture fault length as 5% of the total fault length) a PGA value of 0.159 g. Acceleration time history (ground motion) and a response acceleration spectrum for the corresponding magnitude has been generated using synthetic earthquake model considering the regional seismotectonic parameters. The maximum spectral acceleration obtained is 0.332 g for predominant period of 0.06 s. The PGA value and synthetic earthquake ground motion data from the identified vulnerable source using seismotectonic map will be useful for the PGA mapping and microzonation of the area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]