Deep Shear Wave Velocity of Southern Bangkok and Vicinity

Abstract

Bangkok is located on the soft marine clay in the Lower Chao Phraya Basin which can amplify seismic wave and can affect the shaking of buildings during an earthquake. Deep shear wave velocity of the sediment in the basin are useful for study the effect of the soft sediment on the seismic wave and can be used for earthquake engineering design and ground shaking estimation, especially for a deep basin. This study aims to measure deep shear wave velocity and create 2D shear wave velocity profile down to a bedrock in the southern Bangkok by the Microtremor measurements with 2 seismographs using Spatial Autocorrelation (2-SPAC) technique. The data was collected during a day time on linear array geometry with offsets varying between 5-2,000 m. Low frequency of natural tremor (0.2-0.6 Hz) was detected at many sites, however, very deep shear wave data at many sites are ambiguous due to man-made vibration noises in the city. The results show that shear wave velocity of the sediment in the southern Bangkok is between 100-2,000 ms-1 and indicate that the bedrock depth is about 600-800 m, except at Bang Krachao where bedrock depth is unclear.