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Published February 2004 | Published
Journal Article Open

Simulations of Ground Motion in the Los Angeles Basin Based upon the Spectral-Element Method

Abstract

We use the spectral-element method to simulate ground motion generated by two recent and well-recorded small earthquakes in the Los Angeles basin. Simulations are performed using a new sedimentary basin model that is constrained by hundreds of petroleum-industry well logs and more than 20,000 km of seismic reflection profiles. The numerical simulations account for 3D variations of seismic-wave speeds and density, topography and bathymetry, and attenuation. Simulations for the 9 September 2001 M_w 4.2 Hollywood earthquake and the 3 September 2002 M_w 4.2 Yorba Linda earthquake demonstrate that the combination of a detailed sedimentary basin model and an accurate numerical technique facilitates the simulation of ground motion at periods of 2 sec and longer inside the basin model and 6 sec and longer in the regional model. Peak ground displacement, velocity, and acceleration maps illustrate that significant amplification occurs in the basin.

Additional Information

© 2004 Seismological Society of America. Manuscript received 21 April 2003. The authors would like to thank Egill Hauksson and Jascha Polet for first-motion and surface-wave centroid moment tensor estimates, Hiroo Kanamori for fruitful discussion, Steven M. Day for the analytical solution of the SCEC LOH.3 benchmark, and TriNet for access to the data. They also thank Thomas Pratt and an anonymous reviewer for comments that improved the manuscript. This research was funded in part by the National Science Foundation and by the National Earthquake Hazard Reduction Program under Grant 99HQGR001. This is Contribution Number 8966 of the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, California Institute of Technology.

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August 19, 2023
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