Empirical map-based nonergodic models of site response in the greater Los Angeles area

Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America
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Abstract

We develop empirical estimates of site response at seismic stations in the Los Angeles area using recorded ground motions from 414 M 3–7.3 earthquakes in southern California. The data are from a combination of the Next Generation Attenuation‐West2 project, the 2019 Ridgecrest earthquakes, and about 10,000 newly processed records. We estimate site response using an iterative mixed‐effects residuals partitioning approach, accounting for azimuthal variations in anelastic attenuation and potential bias due to spatial clusters of colocated earthquakes. This process yields site response for peak ground acceleration, peak ground velocity, and pseudospectral acceleration relative to a 760 m/s shear‐wave velocity (Vs) reference condition. We employ regression kriging to generate a spatially continuous site response model, using the linear site and basin terms from Boore et al. (2014) as the background model, which depend on Vs30 and depth to the 1 km/s Vs isosurface. This is different from past approaches to nonergodic models, in which spatially varying coefficients are regressed. We validate the model using stations in the Community Seismic Network (CSN) that are in the middle of our model spatial domain but were not considered in model development, finding strong agreement between the interpolated model and CSN data for long periods. Our model could be implemented in regional seismic hazard analyses, which would lead to improvements especially at long return periods. Our site response model also has potential to improve both ground‐motion accuracy and warning times for the U.S. Geological Survey ShakeAlert earthquake early warning (EEW) system. For a point‐source EEW simulation of the 1994 M 6.7 Northridge earthquake, our model produces ground motions more consistent with the ground‐truth ShakeMap and would alert areas with high population density such as downtown Los Angeles at lower estimated magnitudes (i.e., sooner) than an ergodic model for a modified Mercalli intensity 4.5 alerting threshold.

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Publication type Article
Publication Subtype Journal Article
Title Empirical map-based nonergodic models of site response in the greater Los Angeles area
Series title Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America
DOI 10.1785/0120210175
Volume 112
Issue 3
Year Published 2022
Language English
Publisher Seismological Society of America
Contributing office(s) Earthquake Science Center
Description 23 p.
First page 1607
Last page 1629
Country United States
State California
City Los Angeles
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