Optimal representation of our knowledge about seismic sources for PSHA in low deformation areas

Abstract

characterization of the seismic sources, the definition of the attenuation law and the computation of the probabilistic seismic hazard. Our work is focus on the first two steps. Given that most active faults are not characterized well enough, in low deformation areas, seismic sources are generally defined as areal zones, delimited with finite boundary polygons, within which the geological features of active tectonics and the seismicity are deemed homogeneous. Besides the lack of data (e.g., narrow range of recorded magnitudes), the application of this representation generates different problems: 1) a large sensitivity of resulting hazard maps on the location of zone boundaries, while these boundaries are set by expert decision; 2) the zoning can not represent any variation in faulting mechanism; 3) the seismicity rates are distributed throughout the zones and we lose the location of the determinant information used for their calculation. We propose an exploratory study for an alternative procedure in area source modeling. This method allows to obtain a limit, and its uncertainties, between two zones, separated by two different seismic activity rates. Since we obtain this limit, we can recover the seismic activity rates for both zones.The important features for this developed method is the location and magnitude of the largest earthquakes. Given than the largest events are not recorded by instruments,we decide to use the Bakun and Wentworth method (1997) to better characterize the epicentral region and the magnitude of the instrumental earthquakes. Because of the unusual shape of the isoseismal lines of the 1909 Benavente event, we decided to apply this methodology to this event. The result show that the estimated epicenter (Kárnik, 1969) is within all the confidence-level. Because of the low magnitude estimation, we decide to test the sensibility of this method to the attenuation law. A new law is developed using a compilation of macroseismic reports and will be used to re-estimate the epicentral region and the magnitude of the 1909 Benavente event.The logarithmic trends of intensities with the median distance suggests a logarithmic form for the attenuation law. Then, this law will be used to re-evaluate the estimations of both epicentral region and magnitude of the 1909 Benavente event.