Geodetic characterization of active Katrol Hill Fault (KHF) of Central Mainland Kachchh, western India

After the M7.7 earthquake in 2001, the Kachchh rift basin became the focus of various geological and geophysical researches on the western Indian plate. As an essential technology, the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) has been utilized to study the deformation pattern in the central mainland Kachchh. We select the east-west striking Katrol Hill Fault (KHF) as the study area and analyze the crustal deformation pattern using the datasets from 2014 to 2019. The geodetic results along the KHF reveal a mean deformation of about 2.1 mm per year, which is higher in the eastern part and lower in the central and western parts. The investigation of deformation and derived strain reveals the segmented behavior of KHF, while the dominance of compressive strain (maximum 22 nanostrain/yr) in the eastern segment makes it the most active segment of the KHF. A higher deformation rate along the eastern KHF can be considered significant in terms of seismic hazard for this part of the Indian plate.