quake prediction tool gains ground greek researchers have come close to predicting three large earthquakes this year by monitoring electrical signals in the crust although seismologists don9t fully understand the method and some believe its claimed successes have been due to luck it is attracting a lot of attention in the earth science community

horizontal to vertical spectral ratio and geological conditions the case of garner valley downhole array in southern california the aim of the present article is to further check the use of the hori zontal to vertical h v spectral ratio which has been recently suggested as an indi cator of site effects the data set consists of 1 t0 three component high sensitivity accelerograms recorded at five different depths by the garner valley downhole array gvda in southern california with peak ground accelerations 0 0002 g ag 0 04 g magnitudes 3 0 ml 4 6 and hypocentral distances 16 km r 107 km first the stability of the h v spectral ratio is investigated by computing the mean for the whole data set in different depths the h v spectral ratio on the surface is compared with the surface to depth standard spectral ratio with theoretical s wave transfer functions derived from the vertical geotechnical profile as well as with the h v spectral ratio of synthetic accelerograms generated by the discrete wavenumber method both theoretical and experimental data show a good stability of the h v spectral ratio shape which is in good agreement with the local geological structure and is insensitive to the source location and mechanism however the absolute level of the h v spectral ratio depends on the wave field and is different from the surface to depth spectral ratio consequently the h v spectral ratio tech nique provides only partially the information that can be obtained from a downhole array but surface to depth ratios may also be misleading because they combine effects at surface and at depth

structure seismicity and thermal regime of the queen charlotte transform margin 1 this study examines structural seismicity thermal and current deformation constraints on the tectonic regime of the queen charlotte margin located off the northwest coast of canada the margin is primarily a transcurrent boundary between the oceanic pacific plate and the continental north america plate but plate motion models indicate 20 of current oblique convergence that initiated 5 myr the estimated 120 km of convergence has been variously explained as accommodated by underthrusting or by crustal shortening the near vertical queen charlotte transcurrent fault and lack of wadati benioff earthquakes argue against underthrusting however structural models for the margin from receiver function and refraction studies show little evidence of crustal thickening the pattern of landward decreasing heat flow gravity anomalies an accretionary prism landward of the trench or trough down bowing ocean crust and sediments horizons and a variety of other geophysical evidence support underthrusting receiver function analysis on teleseismic data indicates a 10 km thick low velocity layer at 35 km depth dipping 20 to the east which is interpreted as underthrusting oceanic crust the heat flow across the fault zone rapidly decreases landward in agreement with predictions from a finite element thermal model of underthrusting

a comparison and test of various site response estimation techniques including three that are not reference site dependent abstract we compare various site response estimation techniques using after shock data of the 1989 loma prieta earthquake collected in oakland california because of recent interest in comparing results from weak and strong motion to infer any nonlinearity and between direct s and coda waves we pay particular attention to the uncertainties first sediment to bedrock spectral ratio estimates between pairs of sites are compared with those obtained from various generalized inversion approaches where the source and site effects of multiply recorded events are solved for simultaneously we find that the site amplification factors are very similar among these approaches but that the uncertainties can be significantly different depending on how the data are weighted we also examine and test three site response estimation techniques that do not rely on a reference site to estimate source and path effects the first involves a parameterized source and path effects inversion even when the bedrock data are excluded from consideration this approach is found to reveal the frequency dependence of site response at each of the sediment sites the second technique involves taking horizontal to vertical component spectral ratios receiver function type estimates of shear wave aftershock data these are also found to reveal the frequency dependence of site response at the sediment sites and the results for the bedrock site are relatively flat and near unity the third estimate is formed by taking horizontal to vertical component ratios of ambient seismic noise and these are shown to reveal the fundamental resonant frequency of the sediment sites unfortunately discrepancies exist among all of the site response estimates and with one dimensional predictions with respect to a frequency independent scaling factor nevertheless the highly frequency dependent character of site response is well constrained and the fact that non reference site dependent methods are capable of revealing this is promising for site specific hazard assessments in regions that lack adequate reference sites

high frequency site effects at two parkfield downhole and surface stations abstract using stacked ratios of microearthquake source spectra recorded at the surface and 200 m downhole we have established the p and s wave site effect at two locations in parkfield california the frequency responses of both sites are bimodal being completely dominated by multiples and amplification below 10 hz and by attenuation above 30 hz the low frequency amplification factors show roughly three to five times more uphole motion compared to that downhole the multiples produce peaks with a maximum of nearly 10 times more uphole motion above 50 hz the downhole motion is always larger approaching a factor of 5 at the high frequency limits of our study when fit with a linear attenuation model the high frequency ratios yield compressional and shear q values between 6 and 19 the data were divided into subsets based on event location and time of year statistical comparison of these subsets shows no systematic variation with azimuth or season the results of our study accounts for the lack of high frequency surface reflections in the parkfield downhole data but not for the lack of source scaling of parkfield microearthquakes

evaluation of local site effects and their removal from borehole records observed in the sendai region japan abstract we present results from a borehole observation network composed of 12 borehole sites deployed in a 20 20 km area in the sendai region japan the subsurface quaternary layers vary with each site but a pliocene layer is commonly underlying at a depth of 0 to 80 m throughout the sendai region we define this pliocene layer whose s wave velocity is larger than 500 m sec and whose n value of the standard penetration test is greater than 50 as an engineering bedrock in the region once we characterize ground motions at the engineering bedrock we can either use these motions directly in the response analysis of whole soil building systems or use them in the nonlinear analysis of soft soil layers as an input the purpose of this study is to evaluate the local site effects due to surface layers overlying the engineering bedrock and to remove them by using one dimensional 1d soil models whose properties are determined by weak motion records of 18 events first we identify s wave velocities and frequency dependent quality factors q from amplification factors between surface records and borehole records observed at 10 sites at depths of several tens of meters the identified s wave velocities are very close to s wave logging values the identified q values show strong frequency dependence proportional to f 0 46 to 1 16 where f is frequency we confirm that the observed amplification factors in the frequency range from about 0 1 to 20 hz can be explained well by the theoretical ones based on the 1d wave propagation theory with the identified s wave velocities and q then we estimate the so called engineering bedrock waves which are supposed to be observed on the outcrop of the engineering bedrock from borehole records by using the 1d models with these identified soil constants we confirm that local site effects due to surface layers overlying the engineering bedrock are properly removed so that we have similar characteristics in the resultant engineering bedrock waves from records at different sites

seismic noise based strategies for emphasizing recent tectonic activity and local site effects the ferrara arc northern italy case study during the seismic crisis of may june 2012 that strongly affected the central sector of the ferrara arc relevant coseismic effects were observed such as ground deformations and amplification phenomena due to low quality mechanical characteristics of the shallow subsurface i e few hundreds of meters this portion of the subsurface is not investigated by neither hydrocarbon explorations too deep nor geotechnical surveys too shallow furthermore direct analysis is not cost effective to carry out over such a wide area to overcome these limitations we exploited seismic noise based strategies which are not invasive and do not require expensive equipment we carried out several single station and array measurements i e esac re mi and hvsr across some of the major tectonic structures of the eastern po plain belonging to the most advanced buried sector of the northern apennines such investigations were performed along two profiles about 27 km long and oriented ssw nne i e almost perpendicular to the regional trend of the ferrara arc structures our results clearly document lateral shear wave velocity variations and the occurrence of resonance phenomena between 0 52 and 0 85 hz additionally based on inversion procedures we were able to infer the depth of the resonant interface s and we associated such interface s to the major known stratigraphic discontinuities thus emphasizing the recent tectonic activity of the blind thrusts affecting this sector of the ferrara arc

near surface attenuation and site effects from comparison of surface and deep borehole recordings abstract near surface attenuation and site effects are investigated using the seismograms of 17 local earthquakes recorded at depths of 0 0 3 1 5 2 5 and 2 9 km in the cajon pass borehole southern california the borehole penetrates 500 m of miocene sandstone and then crystalline granitic basement rock previous estimates of site response have been limited to shallower holes where the surface reflection interferes with the upgoing direct wave and the deepest sensor is not below the severe near surface effects in bedrock spectral ratios of the direct p and s waves for each earthquake between the different recording levels are well modeled with frequency independent q and amplification at the borehole q p 27 8 and q s 21 7 in the upper 2 9 km increasing from q p 26 and q s 15 in the upper 300 m to q p 133 and q s 47 between 1 5 and 3 km one event was also recorded at a surface granite site less than 1 5 km from the wellhead comparison of the 2 9 km recording with that at this granite site gives q p 50 and q s 23 the similarity of these values with those of previous studies at a wide range of sites suggests that q is very low in the near surface independent of rock type near surface amplification appears considerably more site dependent at the wellhead the amplifications at 1 hz of the direct p and s waves are 12 7 and 13 7 respectively these values include the free surface effect and are in reasonable agreement with the impedance contrast from the borehole logs at the granite site amplification of both p and s waves is less than four direct wave amplification at the wellhead is therefore at least three times that of the granite site the spectra of the direct and coda waves of the one earthquake recorded at both the wellhead and granite sites are compared with the corresponding 2 9 km recording coda wave amplification is in good agreement with the direct wave at the rock site but at the borehole the coda wave amplification factor overestimates the direct wave amplification by a factor of 3

on the characteristics of local geology and their influence on ground motions generated by the loma prieta earthquake in the san francisco bay region california strong ground motions recorded at 34 sites in the san francisco bay region from the loma prieta earthquake show marked variations in characteristics dependent on crustal structure and local geological conditions peak horizontal acceleration and velocity inferred for sites underlain by rock generally occur on the transverse component of motion they are consistently greater with lower attenuation rates than the corresponding mean value predicted by empirical curves based on previous strong motion data theoretical amplitude distributions and synthetic seismograms calculated for 10 layer models suggest that bedrock motions were elevated due in part to the wide angle reflection of s energy from the base of a relatively thin 25 km continental crust in the region characteristics of geologic and geotechnical units as currently mapped for the san francisco bay region show that average ratios of peak horizontal acceleration velocity and displacement increase with decreasing mean shear wave velocity ratios of peak acceleration for sites on soil alluvium fill bay mud are statistically larger than those for sites on hard rock sandstone shale franciscan complex spectral ratios establish the existence of predominant site periods with peak amplifications near 15 for potentially damaging levels of ground motion at some sites underlain by alluvium and fill bay mud average spectral amplifications inferred for vertical and the mean horizontal motion are respectively 1 1 for sites on the franciscan complex kjf 1 4 1 5 for sites on mesozoic and tertiary rocks tmzs 2 1 2 0 for sites on the santa clara formation qts 2 3 2 9 for sites on alluvium qal and 2 1 4 0 for sites on fill bay mud qaf qhbm these mean values are not statistically different at the 5 significance level from those inferred from previous low strain data analyses suggest that soil amplification and reflected crustal shear energy were major contributors to levels of ground motion sufficient to cause damage to vulnerable structures at distances near 100 km in the cities of san francisco and oakland

analysis of borehole broadband recordings test site in the po basin northern italy we analyze the broadband recordings from a borehole station installed in the bedrock underneath the po basin northern italy and from a second station temporarily deployed on the surface at the same site to determine the surface sedimentary layer response and test the robustness of the different empirical techniques used to estimate local site effects we investigate the site amplification by evaluating the surface to downhole spectral ratios and the horizontal to vertical spectral ratios on both weak motion events and microtremors all the different empirical methods except the horizontal to vertical spectral ratios on weak motions reveal the main amplification peak at about 0 8 hz although the amplification factors are not always in agreement the 0 8 hz peak is the fundamental mode of the site due to the upper 130 m quaternary alluvium column v s 300 m sec we compare these experimental spectral functions with the theoretical 1d site response including and not including the borehole site response first we evaluate the theoretical transfer function at the surface then at depth and take the smoothed ratio the shallow velocity and attenuation structure at this site is assumed from previous studies we attempt to account for the effect of the reflected wave field in the borehole recordings in two different ways first we include the reflected wave field in the theoretical response function taking the theoretical transfer function9s ratio hst hbt and comparing it to the experimental earthquake ratios of horizontal components recorded at surface and at depth hs hb alternatively we multiply the hs hb earthquake ratio by the coherence and compare it to the surface response function this second approach does not provide a good fit to the amplitude of model response even if the shape of the ratio is in agreement with the theoretic response suggesting that multiplying by the coherence is not a good way to correct for the effect of reflected phases to further understand the goodness of our theoretical 1d model hst hbt theoretical evaluations we simulate the propagation through the shallower soil structure of the seismic waveforms recorded by the borehole sensor for a couple of events obtaining reasonably good agreement with the surface time histories both in phase and amplitude this test site and the results of this study are useful for understanding the influence of sedimentary layers on the ground shaking in the po basin the largest and most populated alluvial basin in italy

shear wave velocity structure of sediments from the inversion of explosion induced rayleigh waves comparison with cross hole measurements rayleigh waves generated by a 10 kg dynamite explosion were recorded along a dense linear array of 47 seismic stations the array had a total length of 1 4 km and it was deployed on the sediments of the po river floodplain near the city of ferrara northern italy the recorded signals were dominated by fundamental mode rayleigh waves several techniques including multiple filter analysis phase velocity stacking and single station cross correlation were used to obtain group and phase velocity dispersion from subsets for the data set synthetic seismograms were computed for one velocity structure showing a good match to the recorded waveforms late rayleigh wave codas were characterized by persistent monochromatic ringing interpreted as due to surface waves scattered by weak lateral heterogeneities scattering within the alluvium of the great po river valley likely occurred across a reticular system of ancient secondary river beds compared to the rest of the floodplain these preferential directions of local drainage are characterized by different sedimentary environments the availability of in situ cross hole measurements of shear wave velocities allowed the comparison with our results from surface observations demonstrating that the analysis of explosion induced rayleigh waves can be used for the geophysical characterization of flat layered structures at a local scale for seismic engineering purposes

the 2012 emilia seismic sequence northern italy imaging the thrust fault system by accurate aftershock location abstract starting from late may 2012 the emilia region northern italy was severely shaken by an intense seismic sequence originated from a m l 5 9 earthquake on may 20th at a hypocentral depth of 6 3 km with thrust type focal mechanism in the following days the seismic rate remained high counting 50 m l 2 0 earthquakes a day on average seismicity spreads along a 30 km east west elongated area in the po river alluvial plain in the nearby of the cities ferrara and modena nine days after the first shock another destructive thrust type earthquake m l 5 8 hit the area to the west causing further damage and fatalities aftershocks following this second destructive event extended along the same east westerly trend for further 20 km to the west thus illuminating an area of about 50 km in length on the whole after the first shock struck on may 20th a dense network of temporary seismic stations in addition to the permanent ones was deployed in the meizoseismal area leading to a sensible improvement of the earthquake monitoring capability there a combined dataset including three component seismic waveforms recorded by both permanent and temporary stations has been analyzed in order to obtain an appropriate 1 d velocity model for earthquake location in the study area here we describe the main seismological characteristics of this seismic sequence and relying on refined earthquakes location we make inferences on the geometry of the thrust system responsible for the two strongest shocks

measurement of q 1 for s waves in mudstone at chikura japan comparison of incident and reflected phases in borehole seismograms seismograms from small events in the southern kanto region have been recorded by a seismometer installed in a 732 m deep borehole at chikura observatory japan where mudstone of early pliocene age is found from the ground surface to the bottom of the borehole strong phases occurring 1 5 1 6 sec after the s wave arrival were interpreted as reflections at the ground surface ray path directions of the incident s waves were determined from the minimum principal axis of the three dimensional trajectory ellipsoid which represents the particle motion for a head wave of s phase transverse horizontal sh components were used to estimate the q 1 value for s waves assuming the free surface acted as an 100 reflector for the sh waves and the incident sh phase as an input and the reflected phase as an output we calculated system functions the q 1 value was measured from the transfer characteristics between the incident and the reflected phases in a single seismogram thus no corrections were necessary for source or site including instrument effects if we applied a power law model the following relationship was obtained from the regression analyses of 20 events log 10 q 1 0 52 0 48 log 10 f 1 28 0 22 1 0 f 5 0 hz where f is frequency in hz and error values are the 95 confidence levels of the regression coefficients

gas geochemistry and seismotectonics a review abstract publications on soil and spring gases have been examined regarding their relationships with both tectonic and seismic activities the main sources behaviours and uses of species detected in soils and springs are displayed and their mode of sampling and analysing briefly described the main patterns of degassing in soils are described and we outline the wide range of geochemical signatures as the result of both permeability and mineralogical contrasts because thermomineral waters have been in contact with great volumes of crustal rocks at various depths spring gases might be more representative of the local environment than soil gases moreover gas signature comparisons show that spring gases are much more enriched with deep gases and slightly contaminated by atmospheric gases therefore they can be considered as better samples for identifying precursors of earthquakes environmental perturbations are examined and it is shown from divergent cases that pressure temperature soil moisture or earth tides may generate very high perturbations of the degassing process such effects demonstrate that no systematic correction law can be proposed and that removing external contributions from gas concentrations must be performed case by case this demonstrates therefore the need for the simultaneous measurement of external parameters during gas monitoring a qualitative examination of about 150 claimed precursors proposed in the literature has been reviewed as noted by previous authors anomalies appear at distances sometimes much greater than typical source dimensions and occur in the field of strain higher than 10 9 most of them being in the field of strain higher than 10 8 taking into account the very high heterogeneity of such a set of data we can suggest that amplitudes of gas anomalies are independent of both magnitudes and epicentral distances of related earthquakes suggesting local conditions to control amplitudes on the contrary precursory time and duration of anomalies seem to increase both with magnitudes and epicentral distances abundant evidence demonstrates the major role of crustal fluids in the earthquake cycle many works have outlined the fact that crustal instabilities can appear as the result of low stress strain perturbations during loading it has been suggested that motion of fluids may occur at various scales from microcrack fluid transfer up to changes of hydraulic levels of water tables the study of subsequent anomalies is expected to supply a tool for earthquake prediction following previous authors we outline the need for further methodological improvements including the setting up of multiparameter station networks and the simultaneous recording of the main external parameters atmospheric pressure water and air temperature soil moisture for signal processing

earthquake prediction a critical review summary earthquake prediction research has been conducted for over 100 years with no obvious successes claims of breakthroughs have failed to withstand scrutiny extensive searches have failed to find reliable precursors theoretical work suggests that faulting is a non linear process which is highly sensitive to unmeasurably fine details of the state of the earth in a large volume not just in the immediate vicinity of the hypocentre any small earthquake thus has some probability of cascading into a large event reliable issuing of alarms of imminent large earthquakes appears to be effectively impossible key word earthquake prediction

telluric and magnetotelluric study of the ferrara high northern italy abstract a telluric survey and several magnetotelluric mt soundings have been carried out across the ferrara high northern italy in a geothermal area previously explored in detail during a search for oil the aim was to compare telluric mt and gravimetric data with a structural model derived from a seismic investigation in a region of fairly well known geology the comparison between observed and predicted telluric pseudo sections reveals a much better agreement than expected especially since the gravimetric field data clearly show that the structure is effectively 3 d whereas the comparison was restricted to a single profile with 2 d interpretations the 3 d character seems to appear most clearly in the telluric parameters at periods 10 s in the search for a 2 d interpretation of the telluric and mt data an attempt was made to reduce the family of possible models by imposing external constraints it was gratifying to find that the best fit with the seismic 2 d model was obtained when a uniform resistivity was required for each of the separate formations revealed by the seismic sounding

polarization and coherence of 5 to 30 hz seismic wave fields at a hard rock site and their relevance to velocity heterogeneities in the crust abstract except for its very onset the p wave of earthquakes and chemical explosions observed at two narrow aperture arrays on hard rock sites in the adirondack mountains have a nearly random polarization the amount of energy on the vertical radial and transverse components is about equal over the frequency range 5 to 30 hz for the entire seismogram the spatial coherence of the seismograms is approximately exp cf x where c is in the range 0 4 to 0 7 km 1 hz 1 f is frequency and x is the distance between array elements vertical radial and transverse components were quite coherent over the aperture of the array indicating that the transverse motion of the compressional wave is a property of relatively large 10 6 m 3 volumes of rock and not just an anomaly caused by a malfunctioning instrument poor instrument rock coupling or out crop scale effects the spatial coherence is approximately independent of component epicentral azimuth and range and whether p or s wave coda is being considered at least for propagation distances between 5 and 170 km these results imply a strongly and three dimensionally heterogeneous crust with near receiver scattering in the uppermost crust controlling the coherence properties of the waves

site effect evaluation using spectral ratios with only one station the spectral ratio technique is a common useful way to estimate empirical transfer function to evaluate site effects in regions of moderate to high seismicity the purpose of this paper is to show that it is possible to estimate empirical transfer function using spectral ratios between horizontal and vertical components of motion without a reference station the technique originally proposed by nakamura to analyze rayleigh waves in the microtremor records is presented briefly and it is discussed why it may be applicable to study the intense s wave part in earthquake records results are presented for three different cities in mexico oaxaca oax acapulco gro and mexico city these cities are very different by their geological and tectonic contexts and also by the very different epicentral distances to the main seismogenic zones affecting each city each time we compare the results of nakamura s technique with standard spectral ratios in all three cases the results are very encouraging we conclude that if site effects are caused by simple geology a first estimate of dominant period and local amplification level can be obtained using records of only one station

what is a reference site many methods for estimating site response compare ground motions at sites of interest to a nearby rock site that is considered a reference motion the critical assumption in these methods is that the surface rock site record reference is equivalent to the input motion at the base of the soil layers data collected in this study show that surface rock sites can have a site response of their own which could lead to an underestimation of the seismic hazard when these sites are used as reference sites data were collected from local and regional earthquakes on digital recorders both at the surface and in boreholes at two rock sites and one basin site in the san jacinto mountains southern california the two rock sites keenwild and pinon flat are located on granitic bedrock of the southern california peninsular ranges batholith the basin site garner valley is an ancestral lake bed with watersaturated sediments on top of a section of decomposed granite which overlies the competent bedrock ground motion is recorded simultaneously at the surface and in the bedrock at all three sites when the surface rock sites are used as the reference site i e the surface rock motion is used as the input to the basin the computed amplification underestimates the actual amplification at the basin site for frequencies above 2 to 5 hz this underestimation by a factor of 2 to 4 depending on frequency and site results from the rock sites having a site response of their own above the 2 to 5 hz frequencies the near surface weathering and cracking of the bedrock affects the recorded ground motions at frequencies of engineering interest even at sites that appear to be located on competent crystalline rock the bedrock borehole ground motion can be used as the reference motion but the effect of the downgoing wave field and the resulting destructive interference must be considered this destructive interference may produce pseudo resonances in the spectral amplification estimates if one is careful the bedrock borehole ground motion can be considered a good reference site for seismic hazard analysis even at distances as large as 20 km from the soil site

site amplification in the san fernando valley california variability of site effect estimation using the s wave coda and h v methods during the months that followed the 17 january 1994 m 6 7 northridge california earthquake portable digital seismic stations were deployed in the san fernando basin to record aftershock data and estimate site amplification factors this study analyzes data recorded on 31 three component stations from 38 aftershocks ranging from m 3 0 to m 5 1 and depths from 0 2 to 19 km site responses from the 31 stations are estimated from coda waves s waves and ratios of horizontal to vertical h v recordings for the coda and the s waves site response is estimated using both direct spectral ratios and a generalized inversion scheme results from the inversions indicate that the effect of qs can be significant especially at high frequencies site amplifications estimated from the coda of the vertical and horizontal components can be significantly different from each other depending on the choice of the reference site the difference is reduced when an average of six rock sites is used as a reference site in addition when using this multi reference site the coda amplification from rock sites is usually within a factor of 2 of the amplification determined from the direct spectral ratios and the inversion of the s waves however for nonrock sites the coda amplification can be larger by a factor of 2 or more when compared with the amplification estimated from the direct spectral ratios and the inversion of the s waves the h v method for estimating site response is found to extract the same predominant peaks as the direct spectral ratio and the inversion methods the amplifications determined from the hiv method are however different from the amplifications determined from the other methods finally the stations were grouped into classes based on two different classifications general geology and a more detailed classification using a quaternary geology map for the los angeles and san fernando areas average site response estimates using the site characterization based on the detailed geology show better correlation between amplification and surface geology than the general geology classification

garner valley downhole array of accelerometers instrumentation and preliminary data analysis the garner valley downhole array gvda in southern california 33 41 60 n 116 40 20 w is a five element array of three component dual gain force balance accelerometers that are capable of measuring accelerations from 3 10 6 to 2 0 g over a frequency range from 0 0 to 100 hz the accelerometers are placed at depths of 0 6 15 22 and 220 m the lithostratigraphy is 19 m of soil overlying a 24 m layer of weathered granite below which is granite tonalite the array only 7 km from the san jacinto fault is located at the northern end of the anza seismic gap on the san jacinto fault where an m 6 5 or greater earthquake can be expected it is only 35 km from the indio segment of the san andreas fault which last ruptured with an m 8 earthquake around 1700 a d from its installation in july 1989 through july 1991 gvda has recorded 280 earthquakes with magnitudes ranging from 1 2 to 4 7 and epicentral distances ranging from from 0 to 110 km the maximum acceleration recorded was 89 cm sec 2 from an m l 4 2 earthquake 15 8 km hypocentral distance from gvda the average amplification of the apparent seismic moment between 220 m depth and the surface is about 13 for over five orders of magnitude in the size of the recorded earthquakes the spectral ratio 0 220 of horizontal acceleration amplitude spectrum shows a mean amplification of about 10 for the frequency range of 2 0 to 30 hz for 17 events resonance peaks exist at about 1 7 3 0 and 12 0 hz where the spectral ratio 0 220 is nearly 40 analysis of the acceleration spectra of two specific earthquakes that have nearly the same hypocenter but with different magnitudes m 4 2 and 2 5 shows that the weathered granite zone beneath the soil strongly attenuates the spectral amplitudes for frequencies greater than 40 hz the impedance of the soil relative to the weathered granite amplifies all frequencies by about a factor of 3 leading to spectral levels that are greater at the surface than at 22 m depth near the top of the weathered granite the acceleration spectra at each depth show resonant peaks at the same frequencies the spectra at each depth are well correlated for both earthquakes the acceleration spectrum at 220 m is nearly constant for frequencies less than 60 hz which implies that there is little or no attenuation

ground motion amplification in the marina district abstract following the 18 october 1989 loma prieta earthquake triggered seismographs were deployed in and around the marina district to investigate site amplification in the 3 weeks after the mainshock 16 aftershocks were recorded by two or more of these stations two additional stations deployed in march 1990 recorded three earthquakes that occurred in contra costa county by recasting the method of spectral ratios into a generalized inverse problem we combine the shear wave spectra from these 19 aftershocks to estimate the relative site amplification as a function of frequency all five stations located in the marina district are amplified by factors of 6 to 10 at 1 hz and 2 to 4 at 3 hz relative to a station located on franciscan sandstone at fort mason irrespective of whether they are sited on artificial fill or beach sand two stations located on dune sand just outside the marina district are amplified by factors of 2 to 4 for frequencies above 1 hz four stations located on franciscan sandstone in pacific heights nob hill rincon hill and diamond heights show little relative amplification conditional estimates of the mainshock spectra can be determined at stations that only recorded aftershocks if they can be linked to stations that recorded the mainshock these estimates are predicated on the assumption that the ground behaved linearly in the mainshock an assumption that is clearly violated for those sites where there was ground failure using this method of extrapolation for a site in the marina district that showed no evidence of ground failure yields mainshock spectra that are slightly greater than the mainshock spectra from the outer harbor wharf in oakland and near the pacific park plaza in emeryville and that significantly exceed the mainshock spectra from all the free field accelerograms located in san francisco

surface and near surface effects on seismic waves theory and borehole seismometer results a simple plane wave model is adequate to explain many surface versus borehole seismometer data sets using such a model we present a series of examples which demonstrate the effects of the free surface near surface velocity gradients and low impedance surface layers on the amplitudes of upcoming body waves in some cases these amplitudes are predictable from simple free surface and impedance contrast expressions however in other cases these expressions are an unreliable guide to the complete response and the full plane wave calculation must be performed large surface amplifications are possible even without focusing due to lateral heterogeneities or nonlinear effects both surface and borehole seismometer site responses are almost always frequency dependent ocean bottom versus borehole seismic data from the 1983 ngendei seismic experiment in the southwest pacific are consistent with both a simple plane wave model and a more complete synthetic seismogram calculation the borehole seismic response to upcoming p waves is reduced at high frequencies because of interference between the upgoing p wave and downgoing p and sv waves reflected from the sediment basement interface however because of much lower borehole noise levels the borehole seismometer enjoys a p wave signal to noise advantage of 3 to 7 db over nearby ocean bottom instruments

three dimensional simulation of the near fault ground motion for the 1995 hyogo ken nanbu kobe japan earthquake abstract the 17 january 1995 hyogo ken nanbu earthquake is a typical example showing that the ground motions along basin edge faults can be very destructive in this study we simulate the near fault ground motion from this earthquake based on a kinematic fault model and a simplified 3d velocity structure of the kobe area the kinematic earthquake rupture and the wave propagation are modeled using a 3d finite difference method fdm our simulation identifies the basin edge effect as an important factor that influenced the ground motion amplification pattern in the kobe area we found that the coupling of the source directivity and basin edge effects causes impulsive ground motions with extremely high amplitude at periods greater than 1 sec and in a narrow zone offset less than 1 km from the basin edge the combination of these effects acted to create a fairly continuous band of amplification that extends about 30 km in an elongated zone parallel to the basin edge boundary in some areas localized site effects might have been as important as the abovementioned effects but they cannot explain the continuity of the extended east west zone of damage