The 1976 Guatemala Earthquake: ESI Scale and Probabilistic/Deterministic Seismic Hazard Analysis Approaches

Abstract

A hazard assessment of the 1976 Guatemala earthquake (M = 7.5) was conducted to achieve a better definition of the seismic hazard. The assessment was based on the environmental effects that had effectively contributed to the high destructive impact of that event. An interdisciplinary approach was adopted by integrating: (1) historical data; (2) co-seismic geological effects in terms of Environmental Seismic Intensity (ESI) scale intensity values; and (3) ground shaking data estimated by a probabilistic/deterministic approach. A detailed analysis of primary and secondary effects was conducted for a set of 24 localities, to obtain a better evaluation of seismic intensity. The new intensity values were compared with the Modified Mercalli Intensity (MMI) and Peak Ground Acceleration (PGA) distribution estimated using a probabilistic/deterministic hazard analysis approach for the target area. Our results are evidence that the probabilistic/deterministic hazard analysis procedures may result in very different indications on the PGA distributions. Moreover, PGA values often display significant discrepancy from the macroseismic intensity values calculated with the ESI scale. Therefore, the incorporation of the environmental earth effects into the probabilistic/deterministic hazard analysis appears to be mandatory in order to achieve a more accurate seismic estimation.

Seismic hazard analysis using Deterministic Seismic Hazard Analysis (DSHA) Method: A case study in Southern Malang District, East Java

“…The minimum value is obtained from calculating locations that are far from the epicenter, while the maximum value is obtained from calculations at locations close to the epicenter (Gandomi, Soltanpour, Zolfaghari, & Gandomi, 2016;Hason et al, 2021). In the deterministic approach, the results obtained were influenced by the distance of the earthquake hypocenter from the research location and the magnitude of the earthquake (Caccavale, Sacchi, Spiga, & Porfido, 2019;Concha et al, 2020;Pouryari, Mahboobi Ardakani, & Hassani, 2022). Therefore, the farthest location from the earthquake will have a small PGA value, while the closest location will have a great PGA value (Kowsari, Ghazi, Kijko, Javadi, & Shabani, 2021;Mehta & Thaker, 2022;Stewart, Luco, Hooper, & Crouse, 2020).…”

Intensity Reassessment of the 2017 Pohang Earthquake Mw = 5.4 (South Korea) Using ESI-07 Scale

“…Nevertheless, the ESI-07 has some problems that remain unsolved to date, which can be overcome with a larger number of case studies from diverse tectonic settings, geological settings, earthquake mechanism, and distribution of EEEs [23,25,[28][29][30]. In this respect, the applicability of the ESI-07 intensity scale has been tested for the most damaging earthquake during the modern seismic era of the Korean Peninsula.…”

New Perspectives in the Definition/Evaluation of Seismic Hazard through Analysis of the Environmental Effects Induced by Earthquakes

“…The paper "The 1976 Guatemala Earthquake: ESI Scale and Probabilistic/Deterministic Seismic Hazard Analysis Approaches" by M. Caccavale et al [8] shows how the hazard assessment of the 1976 Guatemala earthquake (M = 7.5) based on the environmental effects had effectively contributed to estimating the high destructive impact of that event. The results evidence that the probabilistic/deterministic hazard analysis procedures may result in very different indications on the PGA distributions, and PGA values often display significant discrepancy from the macroseismic intensity values calculated with the ESI scale.…”