## 4 Discussion and Conclusions  
To estimate reliable ground motion predictions for an area with sparse seismic data, we considered the effect of parameter uncertainty by calculating different values for the same simulation parameters using the proven stochastic finite-fault method to simulate the near-field strong ground motion of large earthquakes. In this work, our goal was to consider the extreme situation wherein the maximum credible earthquake occurs on the Kalawenguquan fault. Though we obtained the minimum, average, maximum, and 50 th-, 84 th-, and 95 th-percentile PGA values and acceleration response spectra for multi-scheme ground motion simulations, we mainly drew conclusions based on the average and 84 th-percentile results. It is worth noting that the 84 th-percentile provides the uncertainty of the multi-scheme results calculated using different ground motion simulation parameters and represents the maximum credible ground motion parameters for deterministic seismic hazard. Figure 9: Simulation results with different sites and different initial rupture points for Slip Models 1 and 2. (**a**) The average and (**b**) 84 th-percentile values for Slip Model 1; (**c**) the average and (**d**) 84 th-percentile values for Slip Model 2. We analyzed the slip distribution characteristics of Slip Model 1, Slip Model 2, and a random model. We found that when the largest asperity was closer to Site 1 when using Slip Model 2, the minimum, average, maximum, and 50 th-, 84 th-, and 95 th-percentile PGA values were all lower than those of Slip Model 1, wherein the largest asperity was further from the site. The average and 84 th-precentile acceleration response spectra for Slip Model 1 are higher than those of Slip Model 2 (Figure 6). This contradicts the notion that higher ground motion parameters are obtained when the largest asperity is located closest to the site. Moreover, it is not suitable to use random models when conducting near-field ground motion simulations for Site 1 for large earthquakes, as they do not represent the maximum ground motion scenario. Though different percentiles of PGA and acceleration response spectra for Slip Model 2 are lower, we think that the geological and geomorphological data have effects on the near-field ground motion simulation. If the location of the largest asperity inferred from the geological and geomorphological data is consistent with that shown in Slip Model 1, its impact on ground motion simulation is significant. As the weight schemes and depths of the initial rupture point changed, the simulation results showed very little variation. The historical seismic depth, locking depth, and depth distribution of small earthquakes can be used to determine the depth of the initial rupture point. We could also appropriately reduce the value scheme for the initial rupture point in our simulations. We compared ground motion simulations at different site locations near the F1-3 segment of the Kalawenguquan fault, as shown in Figure 8. The results showed that the response spectra of the sites located on the hanging wall of the fault were higher than those of sites located on the football. In Figure 8a-d, as Site 1, Site 2, Site 4, and Site 5 are closer to the largest and other asperities, we found that the results of the ground motion simulations wherein the site was located near the asperities were greater than when the site was located further away from the asperities. In addition, the response spectra of Site 1 are higher than those of Site 2 for Slip Model 1, while the results of Slip Model 2 are the opposite (Figure 8c,d). This indicates that when the site is located on a smaller asperity and has a certain distance from the largest asperity, the simulation results are greater. [PERSON] et al. [65] investigated the source rupture process of the 12 May 2008 Wenchuan earthquake. Their results showed that five asperities may have been located along the rupture area, and the initial rupture point was near the second-largest asperity.