Simulation of strong ground motion for the 25 April 2015 Nepal (Gorkha) Mw 7.8 earthquake using the SCEC broadband platform

Abstract

The 25th April 2015 Nepal (Gorkha) earthquake has been introduced into the SCEC BBP v15.3, and validation simulations are run using EXSIM methodology with the strong ground motion data of the earthquake. Synthetic seismograms are generated along with the response spectra for engineering applications. Goodness-of-fit metrics have been computed from response spectra for 14 stations located in the Central Indo-Gangetic Plains (CIGP). Plots of residuals are made as a function of hypocentral distance for various time periods. Spatial distribution of residuals as well as average residuals for all stations for the horizontal components are computed. The results demonstrate that there was a good match between the actual data and synthetics generated by the broadband platform. Finally, four of the widely used ground motion prediction equations around the world are chosen to compare how they predict the synthetics for Gorkha earthquake in CIGP.