Characteristics of strong ground motion for typical Australian intra-plate earthquakes and their relationship with the recommended response spectra

Abstract

Global epicentre maps show that the majority of earthquakes are inter-plate, although moderate to large earthquakes do occur intra-plate, i.e. within the plates. The seismicity of the Australian continent is typical of intra-plate environments and a magnitude ML 6 earthquake has an average return period of about 5 years. Recordings of Australian intra-plate earthquakes are investigated here to characterise their frequency content, peak acceleration and duration.Due to lack of quality strong motion records of large intra-plate earthquakes at short distances, synthetic seismograms are commonly used for testing structural behaviour. An empirical Green's Function method (Geophys. Res. Lett., 5 (1978), 1–4; Proceedings of the Third International Microzonation Conference, Seattle, USA, vol. 1, (1982), pp. 447–458.) is chosen to simulate a large earthquake by summation in time of a number of smaller earthquakes or sub-events, each given a slightly different origin time to represent more realistically the propagation of a rupture along an assumed fault plane. In the first instance, recordings on rock of the magnitude ML 2.3 aftershock of the 29 December 1989 Newcastle earthquake were used as sub-events to simulate the main shock of magnitude ML 5.6. Validation studies for events recorded elsewhere in Australia are also considered.The response spectra of such synthetic events will be compared with the recommended spectra developed empirically from a statistical analysis of strong motion data for magnitude 5.4–6.5 intra-plate earthquakes recorded in other parts of the world and normalised to a peak ground velocity of 50mm/s which is typical for a return period of 500 years in Australia (Australasian Structural Engineering Conference, Auckland, New Zealand, (1998), pp. 439–444.). Preliminary results from this comparison with the response spectra recommended for the Building Code of Australia show that the synthetic waveforms produced by this method are realistic and can be used to represent ground motion during typical Australian intra-plate earthquakes.