Characterization of Earthquake Ground Motions for a Site in Papua New Guinea

Date: 4/26/2019

Time: 06:00 PM

Room: Grand Ballroom

A seismic hazard analysis is being conducted for a site in Papua New Guinea. A preliminary analysis suggests that hazard is mostly controlled by crustal and intermediate subduction events within 100 km of the site. Here, we define a suite of ground motion predictions equations (GMPEs) for each source type that represent the median level and epistemic uncertainty of potential ground motions. We use the scaled-backbone approach to achieve this.

A ground-motion database consisting of events of 4.0<Mw<8.0 is compiled from available local and regional monitoring stations in the region. A candidate GMPE is selected for each source type as the central model, considering the data constraints and the model's ability to reproduce observed motions. The central model is then scaled to define the lower and upper branches of the GMPE suite. The scaling factors are determined considering alternative GMPEs, available ground-motion data and epistemic uncertainty recommended for other data-rich regions. Aleatory variability of ground motions is characterized by considering both the scatter of empirical data with respect to the derived GMPE suite, and the scatter observed in other data-rich regions.

Presenting Author: Emrah Yenier

Authors