Surface Soil Effects Study Using Short-period Microtremor Observations in Almería City, Southern Spain

Abstract

In Almería city large earthquakes occurred and many buildings were completely destroyed in these historical earthquakes. The actual population of Almería city is about 200,000 people. This population is rapidly increasing and new urbanizing areas are growing to the eastern part of the city where they are located in softer soil conditions. Consequently, the evaluation of surface soil conditions is very important from a standpoint of earthquake disaster mitigation. We have obtained a landform classification map developed by analysing aerial photos, large-scale topographic maps and 80 borehole data. Eleven unit areas, which have different soil conditions, were inferred from this research. Also, S-wave velocity prospecting tests were carried out at several sites within the city. The shear-velocity values of the ground vary from 1689 m/s in hard rock to 298 m/s in soft soil. These results are useful for understanding the uppermost soil characteristics and are used for soil classification. Finally, short-period microtremor observations were densely carried out in the research area and Nakamura’s method (1989) was applied for determining predominant periods. Microtremors were observed at about 173 sites with mainly 400 m interval in rock sites and 200 m interval in relatively soft soil sites. From the result of these microtremor measurements, the predominant period determined at rock site, in the western part of the city and historic area, is very short, about 0.1 s, and very stable. However at soft soil sites, in the center of the city, near Zapillo Beach and in the newly developed urban area, the predominant period is about 1.0 s and even larger in concordance with the geological conditions. Finally, at medium soil sites, in the eastern part of the city, the predominant period is about 0.4 s and it appears very stable in the whole region. The difference of predominant periods between hard rock and soft soil sites is very clear and it has been observed that the distribution of predominant periods depends heavily on the surface soil conditions.Key wordsSeismic microzoningsoil conditionsalluvial fanslandform classification S-wave refractionmicrotremorsNakamura’s method