The Role of Local Soil-Induced Amplification in the 27 July 1980 Northeastern Kentucky Earthquake

Abstract

Amplification of earthquake ground motions by nearsurface soil deposits was believed to have occurred in Maysville, Kentucky, U.S.A. during the northeast Kentucky (Sharpsburg) earthquake (m b,Lg 5.3) of July 27, 1980. The city of Maysville, founded on approximately 30 m of Late Quaternary Ohio River flood plain alluvium, was 52 km from the epicenter, but experienced equivalent or higher Modified Mercalli Intensity (MMI) VII, compared with the epicentral area of the earthquake (i.e., MMI VI-VII). In this study, dynamic soil properties were obtained at 10 sites in Maysville using seismic P-wave and S-wave (SHmode) refraction and reflection methods. Synthetically generated composite time histories and limited geotechnical information, along with the measured dynamic properties, were used to perform one-dimensional linear-equivalent amplification analyses. The results indicated the soils generated ground-motion amplification factors between 3.0 and 6.0 and at a frequency range between 2.0 and 5.0 Hz (0.2 to 0.5 s). The building damage in Maysville from the Sharpsburg earthquake was predominantly found in one-to threestory masonry structures. The estimated fundamental period for one-to three-story masonry buildings is approximately 0.11 to 0.26 s (3.8 to 9 Hz). These correlations suggest the elevated ground motion intensity in Maysville can be accounted for by near-surface soil-amplification effects and resonance of the ground motion by the buildings (i.e., double resonance).

Nonlinear site response from the strong ground-motion recordings in western China

“…Classic examples of significant infrastructure damage caused by amplified ground motions induced by near-surface soft-soil include the lake sediments in Mexico City during the 1985 Michoacán earthquake (M 8.1) [1] and the bay muds in the Marina District of San Francisco during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake (M 6.9) [2]. These phenomena have also been observed in less seismically active areas of the central United States such as the Ohio River Valley (i.e., Maysville, Ky.) during the 1980 Sharpsburg, Kentucky, M 5.2 earthquake [3] and the Wabash River Valley during the 2008 Mt. Carmel, Illinois, earthquake [4].…”

Linear site-response characteristics at central and eastern U.S. seismic stations

“…Mexico City experienced damaging shaking again during the 2017 Puebla-Morelos Earthquake (M 7.1) (Çelebi et al, 2018). Damage caused by site response has been observed throughout the world during moderate to strong earthquakes (Borcherdt and Glassmoyer, 1992;Hartzell et al, 1996;Woolery et al, 2008;Lu et al, 2010;Asimaki et al, 2017).…”

“…Thus, more work is needed to characterize CEUS site effects, in large part because many locations in the region sit on unlithified sediments that are underlain by stiff bedrock. At such sites, S-wave resonance is a major concern (Street et al, 1997;Woolery et al, 2008;2009;Baise et al, 2016;Pratt et al, 2017;Carpenter et al, 2018;Hassani, and Atkinson, 2018;Sedaghati et al, 2018;Pratt and Schleicher, 2021;Stephenson et al, 2021;Pontrelli et al, 2023), although Vs30 remains a common site attribute to account for site response in the region (Parker et al, 2019;Stewart et al, 2020).…”