Attenuation Relationships for Shallow Crustal Earthquakes Based on California Strong Motion Data

Abstract

Attenuation relationships are presented for peak acceleration and response spectral accelerations from shallow crustal earthquakes. The relationships are based on strong motion data primarily from California earthquakes. Relationships are presented for strike-slip and reverse-faulting earthquakes, rock and deep firm soil deposits, earthquakes of moment magnitude M4 to 8+, and distances up to 100 km.

Stochastic Modeling of California Ground Motions

“…The stochastic ground-motion relations, given in the Appendix for rock and soil sites, are in good agreement with the empirical strong-motion database for California; the average ratio of observed to simulated amplitudes is near unity over all frequencies from 0.2 to 12 Hz. The stochastic relations agree well with empirical regression equations (e.g., Abrahamson and Silva, 1997;Sadigh et al, 1997) in the magnitude-distance ranges well represented by the data, but are better constrained at large distances, due to the use of attenuation parameters based on regional seismographic data. The stochastic ground-motion relations provide a sound basis for estimation of ground motions for earthquakes of magnitude 4 through 8, at distances from 1 to 200 km.…”

“…To date, this approach to ground-motion relations has been applied primarily to regions where strong-motion data are limited in the magnitude and distance range of engineering interest, such as eastern North America (ENA). In California, by contrast, there are sufficient strong ground motion data to provide a solid foundation for empirical ground-motion relations, at least for earthquakes of moment magnitude (M) 6 to 7 at distances from 10 to 30 km (e.g., Abrahamson and Silva, 1997;Sadigh et al, 1997). The development of stochastic-based ground-motion relations for California is nevertheless useful for several reasons.…”

Earthquake hazard in Marmara Region, Turkey

“…On the basis of these favorable predictive comparisons and owing to the geological and geo-tectonic similarity of Anatolia to the California (Strike slip faults similar to North and East Anatolian Faults) and Nevada (Basin and Range region is similar to Aegean Region) we found it to be rational and prudent to utilize, the average of the results obtained from Boore [31], Sadigh [32] and Campbell [33] attenuation relationships for the computation of Peak Ground Acceleration and the average of Boore [31] and Sadigh [32] attenuation relationships for the computation of Spectral Accelerations at 0.2s and 1s (Ss and S1). Same attenuation relationships have been used for the assessment of earthquake hazard for the Western US Leyendecker [34].…”

Single-Station Earthquake Characterization for Early Warning

“…T max Attenuation relations describe how the amplitude of seismic waves decrease with distance and earthquake magnitude, and are commonly used to describe peak ground acceleration or velocity for large magnitude events (Campbell, 1981;Joyner and Boore, 1981;Abrahamson and Silva, 1997;Boore et al, 1997;Campbell, 1997;Fukushima and Irikura, 1997;Sadigh et al, 1997;Wald et al, 1999;Field, 2000). We determine our attenuation relations based on the P-wave amplitude and in order to calculate hypocentral distance.…”