Magnitude 7.6 CARLSBERG RIDGE
2003 July 15 20:27:50 UTC
Preliminary Earthquake Report
U.S. Geological Survey, National Earthquake Information Center
World Data Center for Seismology, Denver
Magnitude | 7.6 | ||
Date-Time |
Tuesday, July 15, 2003 at 20:27:50 (UTC) - Coordinated Universal Time Wednesday, July 16, 2003 at 01:27:50 AM local time at epicenter Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones |
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Location | 2.56S 68.30E | ||
Depth | 10.0 kilometers | ||
Region | CARLSBERG RIDGE | ||
Reference |
635 km (395 miles) NW of Diego Garcia, Chagos Archipelago 945 km (580 miles) SW of MALE, Maldives 1650 km (1030 miles) SW of COLOMBO, Sri Lanka |
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Location Quality | Error estimate: horizontal +/- 9.9 km; depth fixed by location program | ||
Location Quality Parameters |
Nst=79, Nph=79, Dmin=3315.8 km, Rmss=0.94 sec, Erho=9.9 km, Erzz=0 km, Gp=34.9 degrees | ||
Source | USGS NEIC (WDCS-D) |
This earthquake occurred on the Carlsberg Ridge, a mid-ocean ridge system that is located in the Arabian sea between India and Northern Africa. The ridge marks the boundary between the Indian and African plates and near the epicenter the Indian plate is moving away from the African Plate at a rate of 33 mm/yr in a northeasterly direction. The Carlsberg Ridge is a slow-spreading ridge with rough topography and a depth that varies from 1700-4400 meters. Mid-ocean ridges are divergent plate boundaries, where two tectonic plates move apart from each other. New oceanic crust is formed as magma rises up between the two diverging plates. Active spreading ridges are offset by zones known as transform faults, where plates slide horizontally past each other neither destroying or forming crust. This gives the plate boundary a zig-zag pattern. Ocean ridges represent the longest, linear uplifted features of the earth's surface and are marked by a belt of shallow earthquakes. Earthquakes can be caused by the release of tensional stress in the uplifted ridge or by the horizontal movement of plates along the transform faults. |
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Theoretical P-Wave Travel Times Historical Moment Tensor Solutions Earthquakes in 2003, Magnitude 7 and Greater Earthquakes: Frequently Asked Questions
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NB:
The region name is an automatically generated name
from the Flinn-Engdahl (F-E) seismic and geographical regionalization scheme.
The boundaries of
these regions are defined at one-degree intervals and therefore differ from
irregular political boundaries.
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