Site Characterization and Evaluation of Seismic Sources for Amaravati Region

Abstract

After the bifurcation of Telangana from Andhra Pradesh (AP) state in 2014, the Amaravati and adjoining localities has been proposed as a new capital region to the state of AP, India. As per the seismic zonation map of India, the proposed region falls in zone III. However, the prediction of damage level due to earthquakes is highly impossible, as it is influenced by many regional factors. In order to estimate the damage level from the future earthquakes in the present study, the various compositions involved in the regional fields of geological, geomorphological and soil characteristics are evaluated for the selected study region. In addition to this, to understand the seismicity of this region the earthquake catalogue and seismotectonic map have been prepared by collecting the data within 300km radial distance from Velgapudi (16° 52'N, 80° 51'E) as a center. The results of different fields represented in the form of thematic maps for this geographical information system (GIS) software has been used.