Spatiotemporal Evolution of Ground-Motion Intensity at the Irpinia Near-Fault Observatory, Southern Italy

Author(s):  
Matteo Picozzi ◽  
Fabrice Cotton ◽  
Dino Bindi ◽  
Antonio Emolo ◽  
Guido Maria Adinolfi ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT Fault zones are major sources of hazard for many populated regions around the world. Earthquakes still occur unanticipated, and research has started to observe fault properties with increasing spatial and temporal resolution, having the goal of detecting signs of stress accumulation and strength weakening that may anticipate the rupture. The common practice is monitoring source parameters retrieved from measurements; however, model dependence and strong uncertainty propagation hamper their usage for small and microearthquakes. Here, we decipher the ground motion (i.e., ground shaking) variability associated with microseismicity detected by dense seismic networks at a near-fault observatory in Irpinia, Southern Italy, and obtain an unprecedentedly sharp picture of the fault properties evolution both in time and space. We discuss the link between the ground-motion intensity and the source parameters of the considered microseismicity, showing a coherent spatial distribution of the ground-motion intensity with that of corner frequency, stress drop, and radiation efficiency. Our analysis reveals that the ground-motion intensity presents an annual cycle in agreement with independent geodetic displacement observations from two Global Navigation Satellite System stations in the area. The temporal and spatial analyses also reveal a heterogeneous behavior of adjacent fault segments in a high seismic risk Italian area. Concerning the temporal evolution of fault properties, we highlight that the fault segment where the 1980 Ms 6.9 Irpinia earthquake nucleated shows changes in the event-specific signature of ground-motion signals since 2013, suggesting changes in their frictional properties. This evidence, combined with complementary information on the earthquake frequency–magnitude distribution, reveals differences in fault segment response to tectonic loading, suggesting rupture scenarios of future moderate and large earthquakes for seismic hazard assessment.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nesrin Yenihayat ◽  
Eser Çaktı ◽  
Karin Şeşetyan

<p>One of the major earthquakes that resulted in intense damages in Istanbul and its neighborhoods took place on 10 July 1894. The 1894 earthquake resulted in 474 losses of life and 482 injuries. Around 21,000 dwellings were damaged, which is a number that corresponds to 1/7 of the total dwellings of the city at that time. Without any doubt, the exact loss of life was higher. Because of the censorship, the exact loss numbers remained unknown. There is still no consensus about its magnitude, epicentral location, and rupture of length. Even though the hardness of studying with historical records due to their uncertainties and discrepancies, researchers should enlighten the source parameters of the historical earthquakes to minimize the effect of future disasters especially for the cities located close to the most active fault lines as Istanbul. The main target of this study is to enlighten possible source properties of the 1894 earthquake with the help of observed damage distribution and stochastic ground motion simulations. In this paper, stochastic based ground motion scenarios will be performed for the 10 July 1894 Istanbul earthquake, using a finite fault simulation approach with a dynamic corner frequency and the results will be compared with our intensity map obtained from observed damage distributions. To do this, in the first step, obtained damage information from various sources has been presented, evaluated, and interpreted. Secondly, we prepared an intensity map associated with the 1894 earthquake based on macro-seismic information, and damage analysis and classification. For generating ground motions with a stochastic finite fault simulation approach, the EXSIM 2012 software has been used. Using EXSIM, several scenarios are modeled with different source, path, and site parameters. Initial source properties have been obtained from findings of our previous study on the simulation of the 26 September 2019 Silivri (Istanbul) earthquake with Mw 5.8. With the comparison of spatial distributions of the ground motion intensity parameters to the obtained damage and intensity maps, we estimate the optimum location and source parameters of the 1894 Earthquake.</p>


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chun-Te Chen ◽  
Shiann-Jong Lee ◽  
Yu-Chang Chan

<p>The topography effect has been thriving investigated based on numerical modeling. It impacts the seismic ground shaking, usually amplifying the amplitude of shaking at top hills or ridges and de-amplifying at valleys. However, the correlation between the earthquake-induced landslide and the topographic amplification is relatively unexplored. To investigate the amplification of seismic response on the surface topography and the role in the Chi-Chi earthquake-induced landslide in the JiuJiu peaks area, we perform a 3D ground motion simulation in the JiuJiu peaks area of Taiwan based on the spectral element method. The Lidar-derived 20m resolution Digital Elevation Model (DEM) data was applied to build a mesh model with realistic terrain relief. To this end, in a steep topography area like the JiuJiu peaks, the designed thin buffer layers are applied to dampen the mesh distortion. The three doubling mesh layers near the surface accommodate a more excellent mesh model. Our results show the higher amplification of PGA on the tops and ridges of JiuJiu peaks than surrounding mountains, while the de-amplification mostly occurs near the valley and hillside. The relief topography could have a ±50% variation in PGA amplification for compression wave, and have much more variety in PGA amplification for shear wave, which could be in the range between -50% and +100%. We also demonstrate that the high percentages of the landslide distribution right after the large earthquake are located in the topographic amplified zone. The source frequency content interacts with the topographic feature, in general, small-scale topography amplifies the higher-frequency seismic waves. It is worthy of further investigating the interaction between the realistic topography and the velocity structure on how to impact the seismic response in the different frequency bands. We suggest that the topographic seismic amplification should be taking into account in seismic hazard assessment and landslide evaluation.</p>


2011 ◽  
Vol 182 (4) ◽  
pp. 367-379 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicola Alessandro Pino

AbstractSeismic hazard assessment relies on the knowledge of the source characteristics of past earthquakes. Unfortunately, seismic waveform analysis, representing the most powerful tool for the investigation of earthquake source parameters, is only possible for events occurred in the last 100–120 years, i.e., since seismographs with known response function were developed. Nevertheless, during this time significant earthquakes have been recorded by such instruments and today, also thanks to technological progress, these data can be recovered and analysed by means of modern techniques.In this paper, aiming at giving a general sketch of possible analyses and attainable results in historical seismogram studies, I briefly describe the major difficulties in processing the original waveforms and present a review of the results that I obtained from previous seismogram analysis of selected significant historical earthquakes occurred during the first decades of the XXth century, including (A) the December 28, 1908, Messina straits (southern Italy), (B) the June 11, 1909, Lambesc (southern France) – both of which are the strongest ever recorded instrumentally in their respective countries –and (C) the July 13, 1930, Irpinia (southern Italy) events. For these earthquakes, the major achievements are represented by the assessment of the seismic moment (A, B, C), the geometry and kinematics of faulting (B, C), the fault length and an approximate slip distribution (A, C). The source characteristics of the studied events have also been interpreted in the frame of the tectonic environment active in the respective region of interest. In spite of the difficulties inherent to the investigation of old seismic data, these results demonstrate the invaluable and irreplaceable role of historical seismogram analysis in defining the local seismogenic potential and, ultimately, for assessing the seismic hazard. The retrieved information is crucial in areas where important civil engineering works are planned, as in the case of the single-span bridge to be built across the Messina straits and the ITER nuclear fusion power plant to be built in Cadarache, close to the location of the Lambesc event, and in regions characterized by high seismic risk, such as southern Apennines.


2019 ◽  
Vol 90 (6) ◽  
pp. 2262-2275 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriel Candia ◽  
Jorge Macedo ◽  
Miguel A. Jaimes ◽  
Carolina Magna‐Verdugo

ABSTRACT A new computational platform for seismic hazard assessment is presented. The platform, named SeismicHazard, allows characterizing the intensity, uncertainty, and likelihood of ground motions from subduction‐zone (shallow interface and intraslab) and crustal‐zone earthquakes, considering site‐specific as well as regional‐based assessments. The platform is developed as an object‐oriented MATLAB graphical user interface, and it features several state‐of‐the‐art capabilities for probabilistic and deterministic (scenario‐based) seismic hazard assessment. The platform integrates the latest developments in performance‐based earthquake engineering for seismic hazard assessment, including seismic zonation models, ground‐motion models (GMMs), ground‐motion correlation structures, and the estimation of design spectra (uniform hazard spectra, classical conditional mean spectrum (CMS) for a unique tectonic setting). In addition to these standard capabilities, the platform supports advanced features, not commonly found in existing seismic hazard codes, such as (a) computation of source parameters from earthquake catalogs, (b) vector‐probabilistic seismic hazard assessment, (c) hazard evaluation based on conditional GMMs and user‐defined GMMs, (d) uncertainty treatment in the median ground motions through continuous GMM distributions, (e) regional shaking fields, and (f) estimation of CMS considering multiple GMMs and multiple tectonic settings. The results from the platform have been validated against accepted and well‐documented benchmark solutions.


Author(s):  
Hiroyuki Goto ◽  
Yoshihiro Kaneko ◽  
Muriel Naguit ◽  
John Young

ABSTRACT Ground-motion records are critical for seismic hazard assessment and seismic design of buildings and infrastructures. Large (>1g), asymmetric vertical accelerations (AsVAs) have been observed at strong-motion stations during recent earthquakes. However, it is not clear whether all of the observed AsVAs reflect actual ground shaking or the interaction of a building structure and underlying ground. Here, we investigate the cause of large AsVAs recorded at several seismic stations in Christchurch, New Zealand, during the 2011 Mw 6.2 Christchurch earthquake. We first define three metrics and quantify the degree of waveform asymmetry in all available records from nearby M>3 earthquakes. Histograms of the metrics show greater waveform asymmetry for larger accelerations at these stations, which is consistent with the prediction of a nonlinear, soil–structure interaction associated with the elastic collisions of a foundation slab onto the underlying soil. We then use finite-element models to examine the occurrence of the nonlinear, soil–structure interaction at these stations during the Mw 6.2 mainshock and Mw 5.6 aftershock of the 2011 Christchurch earthquake. The parameters of the numerical models are constrained by site investigation of selected stations. We find that numerical simulations closely reproduce the large AsVAs recorded at stations HVSC and PRPC, suggesting that these ground-motion records were contaminated by the nonlinear, soil–structure interaction. Seismic sensors located near the corner of a concrete slab are shown to be more prone to this phenomenon. Our results further suggest that artificial recording of large AsVAs due to the nonlinear, soil–structure interaction can be mitigated if a seismic sensor is placed closer to the center of a foundation slab. The analytical procedure presented in this study may be useful in identifying the occurrence of AsVAs elsewhere and in assessing whether AsVAs are caused by the nonlinear, soil–structure interaction.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisa Zuccolo ◽  
Gemma Cremen ◽  
Carmine Galasso

Several earthquake early warning (EEW) algorithms have been developed worldwide for rapidly estimating real-time information (i.e., location, magnitude, ground shaking, and/or potential consequences) about ongoing seismic events. This study quantitatively compares the operational performance of two popular regional EEW algorithms for European conditions of seismicity and network configurations. We specifically test PRobabilistic and Evolutionary early warning SysTem (PRESTo) and the implementation of the Virtual Seismologist magnitude component within SeisComP, VS(SC), which we use jointly with the SeisComP scanloc module for locating events. We first evaluate the timeliness and accuracy of the location and magnitude estimates computed by both algorithms in real-time simulation mode, accounting for the continuous streaming of data and effective processing times. Then, we focus on the alert-triggering (decision-making) phase of EEW and investigate both algorithms’ ability to yield accurate ground-motion predictions at the various temporal instances that provide a range of warning times at target sites. We find that the two algorithms show comparable performances in terms of source parameters. In addition, PRESTo produces better rapid estimates of ground motion (i.e., those that facilitate the largest lead times); therefore, we conclude that PRESTo may have a greater risk-mitigation potential than VS(SC) in general. However, VS(SC) is the optimal choice of EEW algorithm if shorter warning times are permissible. The findings of this study can be used to inform current and future implementations of EEW systems in Europe.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leah Salditch ◽  
Seth Stein

<p>Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Assessment (PSHA) attempts to forecast the fraction of sites on a hazard map where ground shaking will exceed the mapped value within some time period. Because the maps are probabilistic forecasts, they explicitly assume that shaking will exceed the mapped value some of the time. At a point on a PSHA map, the probability p that during t years of observations shaking will exceed the value on a map with a T-year return period is assumed to be described by the exponential cumulative density function: p = 1 – exp(-t/T). The fraction of sites, f, where observed shaking exceeds the mapped value should behave the same way. To assess the 2018 USGS National Seismic Hazard Model maps for California, we created the California Historical Intensity Mapping Project (CHIMP), a 162-yr long dataset that combines and consistently reinterprets seismic intensity information that has been stored in disparate and sometimes hard-to-access locations (Salditch et al., 2020). We use two performance metrics; M0 based on the fraction of sites where modeled ground motion is exceeded, and M1 based on of the difference between the mapped and observed ground motion at all sites. M0 is implicit in PSHA because it measures the difference between the predicted and observed fraction of site exceedances and is therefore a key indicator of map performance.</p><p>We explore these metrics for CHIMP. Assuming the dataset to be correct, it appears that the hazard maps overpredicted shaking even correcting for the time period involved. Assuming the model is also correct, a shaking deficit exists between the model and observations. Possible reasons for this apparent overprediction/shaking deficit include: 1) the observations in CHIMP are biased low; 2) the observation period has been less seismically active than typical – either by chance or temporal variability due to stress shadow effects; 3) the model overpredicts due to either the earthquake rupture forecast or the ground motion models. Similar overpredictions appear for past shaking data in Italy, Japan, and Nepal, implying that seismic hazards are often overestimated. Whether this reflects too-high models and/or biased data remains an important question.</p>


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mitsuyuki Hoshiba

Earthquake early warning (EEW) systems aim to provide advance warning of impending ground shaking, and the technique used for real-time prediction of shaking is a crucial element of EEW systems. Many EEW systems are designed to predict the strength of seismic ground motions (peak ground acceleration, peak ground velocity, or seismic intensity) based on rapidly estimated source parameters (the source-based method), such as hypocentral location, origin time, magnitude, and extent of fault rupture. Recently, however, the wavefield-based (or ground-motion-based) method has been developed to predict future ground motions based directly on the current wavefield, i.e., ground motions monitored in real-time at neighboring sites, skipping the process of estimation of the source parameters. The wavefield-based method works well even for large earthquakes with long duration and huge rupture extents, highly energetic earthquakes that deviate from standard empirical relations, and multiple simultaneous earthquakes, for which the conventional source-based method sometimes performs inadequately. The wavefield-based method also enables prediction of the ongoing seismic waveform itself using the physics of wave propagation, thus providing information on the duration, in addition to the strength of strong ground motion for various frequency bands. In this paper, I review recent developments of the wavefield-based method, from simple applications using relatively sparse observation networks to sophisticated data assimilation techniques exploiting dense networks.


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