Seismic assessment in southern Baromura hill, northeast India, considering geophysical aspects

This paper aims to assess the geophysical signatures like morphology and structure of a fault line, which is situated in a part of southern Baromura hill of Tripura, northeast India. In this work manual observations and technical applications were adopted for understanding the morphological and structural characters of the fault line. As tectonic mapping is one of the main objectives of this study, the remote sensing technique was used to prepare a tectonic map of the study area. Geothermal range of the area was measured by unsupervised classification of Landsat TM thermal infrared band (band 6). The classified thermal band was overlaid by another classified shortwave infrared band (band 7 of Landsat TM), which explains the structural evidences of the study area. In addition, an automated digital elevation model (DEM) was prepared to assess the morphological characters of the study area particularly near the confluence of R. Maharani and R. Gumti. To analyse the structural condition of the faulted zone, resistivity characters of the rocks were measured by “vertical electrical sounding” (VES) method. The electrical resistivity character of this area strongly supports that a displacement occurred in this place. Finally an attempt was made to explain the character of faulting on the basis of morphological signatures and structural evidences for future disaster management planning.