Earthquake Cycle Modelling of Multi-segmented Faults: Dynamic Rupture and Ground Motion Simulation of the 1992 M w 7.3 Landers Earthquake

Percy Galvez, Paul Somerville, Anatoly Petukhin, Jean Paul Ampuero, Daniel Peter

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

10 Scopus citations

Abstract

We perform earthquake cycle simulations with the goal of studying the characteristics of source scaling relations and strong ground motions in multi-segmented fault ruptures. The 1992 Mw 7.3 Landers earthquake is chosen as a target earthquake to validate our methodology. The model includes the fault geometry for the three-segmented Landers rupture from the SCEC community fault model, extended at both ends to a total length of 200 km, and limited to a depth to 15 km. We assume the faults are governed by rate-and-state (RS) friction, with a heterogeneous, correlated spatial distribution of characteristic weakening distance Dc. Multiple earthquake cycles on this non-planar fault system are modeled with a quasi-dynamic solver based on the boundary element method, substantially accelerated by implementing a hierarchical-matrix method. The resulting seismic ruptures are recomputed using a fully-dynamic solver based on the spectral element method, with the same RS friction law. The simulated earthquakes nucleate on different sections of the fault, and include events similar to the Mw 7.3 Landers earthquake. We obtain slip velocity functions, rupture times and magnitudes that can be compared to seismological observations. The simulated ground motions are validated by comparison of simulated and recorded response spectra.
Original languageEnglish (US)
JournalPure and Applied Geophysics
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 13 2019

Bibliographical note

KAUST Repository Item: Exported on 2020-10-01
Acknowledgements: This study was based on the 2017 research project ‘Examination for uncertainty of strong ground motion prediction for the inland crustal earthquakes’ by the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA), Japan. We would like to thank Dr. Andrew Bradley for providing the H-matrix module and his valuable assistance in the usage of this library. The Super Computer Shaheen II at KAUST University has been used to run the models presented in this study. Shaheen II is a Cray XC40 delivering over 7.2 Pflop/s of theoretical peak performance. Overall the system has a total of 197,568 processor cores and 790 TB of aggregate memory. J. P. A. acknowledges funding from the French government, through the UCAJEDI Investments in the Future project managed by the National Research Agency (ANR) with the reference number ANR-15-IDEX-01. Special thanks to Ueli Schindler for all his unconditional support on this work at AECOM Switzerland Office.

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