Crustal movement of North-East India and its impact on climate change: a micro-seismic study using Global Positioning System (GPS)

The Earth's crust is divided into a number of plates. Due to the earth's movement, all plates are moving relative to each other with different velocities. The long term climate change has played a great role on the movement of these plates. But the changes happened very slowly, at about in millimeters per year. Climate change can cause seismic shift, which make some regions seismically very active. The more rainfall in North-East India has a small effect on the movement on the plate. The Brahmaputra Valley is built by the deposition of more than 1000 m thick alluvium formed during the period of the rise of the Himalaya. The Brahmaputra Valley is a relatively narrow valley bounded by two mobile young mountain belts, Mishmi block to the northeast and Meghalaya Plateau to the south. The north east part of our country is known to be one of the six most seismically active regions of the world. There is crustal deformation in this region and the area is prone to natural calamities like earthquakes.

The average velocity of Indian plate and the velocity of North–Eastern Region are slightly different. This can work the opposite way too. The different velocity of the plate of this North-East has an effect on climate of this region. For this we have studied the different part of this region for four years (2007–2011) with the help of GPS. We also see the change in climate of this region for these periods. All these are analysed in this paper.