Waveguide or not? Revised ground motion simulations for greater Los
Angeles from the M7.8 ShakeOut earthquake scenario
Abstract
The ShakeOut scenario of a M7.8 northwestward rupture on the southern
San Andreas fault (SSAF) (Jones et al., 2008)
predicted significant long-period ground motion amplification in the
greater Los Angeles, CA, area, caused by a waveguide from interconnected
sedimentary basins. However, the early ShakeOut ground motion
simulations omitted important model features with immature versions of
the velocity structure and fault geometry. Here, we present 0-1 Hz 3D
numerical wave propagation simulations for the ShakeOut scenario
including surface topography, as well as updated high-resolution
velocity structure and SSAF fault geometry. Spectral Accelerations at 3s
are increased by the local high-resolution basin models
(25-45%) but decreased from complexity in velocity and
density updates outside the basins (65-100%) and
inclusion of surface topography
(~30%). The updated model reduces
peak ground velocities in the waveguide from ~250
cm/s to ~100 cm/s, significantly closer to the
values predicted by a leading NGA-West2 ground motion model.