NATURE OF

EARTHQUAKE
GROUND MOTION
ENGR. HEBER JOHN DE VERA
SEISMICITY

Seismicity is a description of the relationship of time, space, strength

and frequency of earthquake occurrence within a certain region and its
understanding is the foundation of earthquake study.
Since there is still no practical way to control earthquakes, one can only
try to understand and follow their nature wisely to prepare for possible
strong earthquakes through prediction, earthquake engineering and
societal or governmental efforts of disaster reduction (Bangash, 2011).
Dowrick (2009) defined seismicity as the frequency of occurrence of
earthquakes per unit area in a given region and is illustrated in non-
numerical terms by the seismicity map of the world shown on the next
slide.
Shown at the left is the seismicity map of the
Philippines for the period of January 2016 –
Deccember 2016 provided by PHIVOLCS.
WHAT ARE EARTHQUAKES?

Earthquakes are broad-banded vibratory ground motions, resulting

from several causes including:
• Tectonic Earthquakes,
• Volcanic Earthquakes,
• Man-made Explosions,
• Collapse Earthquakes,
• Large Reservoir – Induced Earthquake
PLATE TECTONIC THEORY
(1) Material flows out from the upper mantel through the
lithosphere at ocean ridges where the crust is thin
and pushes the lithosphere, whose thickness is a few
kilometers,
(2) drifting horizontally on the asthenosphere, which
shows rheological properties under high
temperature, high pressure and permanent horizontal
pushing. When two tectonic plates collide, one
thrusts under the other and comes back to the
lithosphere, which forms a deep ocean trench and
subduction zone at the junction of two plates and
volcanoes and mountains on the plate which remains
on the Earth’s surface.
 TECTONIC EARTHQUAKES

• The geological explanation

of the majority of
earthquakes is in terms of
what is called plate
tectonics.
• Subduction
• Plate-edge earthquakes
 TECTONIC EARTHQUAKES

• Earthquake-concentrated zones
are called earthquake belts.
• 2 major earthquake belts on the
Earth:
• Circum-Pacific belt, which is very active,
with 75% of earthquakes concentrated on
it.
• The other one is the Eurasian or Alpide-
Asiatic, with about 22% of earthquakes
occurring on it.
• Earthquakes on these two major
belts are interplate earthquakes.
 TECTONIC EARTHQUAKES

• The remaining 3% of the

earthquakes occur inside the
plates and are thus intraplate
earthquakes.
• Intraplate earthquakes are
also caused by plate
movements.
 TECTONIC EARTHQUAKES

• Compared with interplate

earthquakes, continental
earthquakes (intraplate
earthquakes) have the following
three features:
• They are less frequent and
less concentrated
• They are more dangerous to
humans
• The source mechanism varies
and is more complicated
 TECTONIC EARTHQUAKES

Intra plate earthquakes

generally fall into two groups:
• plate boundary related -
either in broad bands near
plate edges and are
tectonically linked to them or
in diffuse plate boundaries
• mid plate - are not related to
plate edges. Distribution of seismicity associated with the New Madrid Seismic
Zone (since 1974). This zone of intense earthquake activity is
located deep within the interior of the North American p3la2te.
 TECTONIC EARTHQUAKES

These intraplate earthquakescan be found on

nearly every continent. (Bolt 2008)
• Intraplate earthquakes
• Have smaller rupture areas and more high frequency content than
interplate earthquakes
• lower attenuation rate observed in intraplate as
compared to interplate earthquakes .

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 TECTONIC EARTHQUAKES

• Occasional damaging intra-plate earthquakes also occur,

well within the interior of the plates that clearly are not
associated with plate boundary conditions, and so far, their
origins are poorly understood. (Dowrick 2009)
• The uncertainties associated with intra-plate seismicity are
much greater than is the case for interplate regions of high
seismicity.

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TECTONIC EARTHQUAKES
FAULTING

• When two ground masses move with respect to one another, elastic strain
energy due to tectonic processes is stored and then released through the
rupture of the interface zone.
• The distorted blocks snap back towards equilibrium and an earthquake
ground motion is produced. This process is referred to as ‘elastic rebound’.
• The resulting fracture in the Earth’s crust is termed a ‘fault’.
• During the sudden rupture of the brittle crustal rock seismic waves are
generated.
• These waves travel away from the source of the earthquake along the
Earth’s outer layers. Their velocity depends on the characteristics of the
material through which theytravel.
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TYPES OF FAULTS

• Faults may range in length from less than a meter to many

hundreds of kilometers.
• In the field, geologists commonly find many discontinuities
in rock structures, which they interpret as faults, and these
are drawn on geological maps as continuous or broken
lines.

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 FAULTING
• Several fault mechanisms exist
depending on how the plates
move with respect to one
another (Housner, 1973).
• The most common mechanisms
of earthquake sources are
described:

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 FAULTING
i. Dip slip faults: one block moves vertically with
respect to the other.
• If the block underlying the fault plane or ‘foot
wall’ moves up the dip and away from the block
overhanging the fault plane or ‘hanging wall’,
normal faults are obtained. Tensile forces cause
the shearing failure of normal faults.
• In turn, when the hanging wall moves upward in
relation to the foot wall the faults are reversed;
compressive forces cause the failure. Thrust faults
are reverse faults characterized by a very small dip
• EX. Mid oceanic ridge earthquakes are due chiefly
to normal faults. The 1971 San Fernando
earthquake in California was caused by rupture of
a reverse fault. Earthquakes along the
Circum Pacific seismic belt are caused by thrust
faults.
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 FAULTING
ii. Strike slip faults: the adjacent blocks move
horizontally past one another.
• Strike slip can be right lateral or left lateral,
depending on the sense of the relative motion of
the blocks for an observer located on one side of
the fault line. The slip takes place along an
essentially vertical fault plane and can be caused
by either compression or tension stresses.
• They are typical of transform zones.
• An example of strike slip occurred in the 1906
San Francisco earthquake on the San Andreas
fault. The latter is characterized by large strike slip
deformations when earthquakes occur (see also
Figure 1.5): part of coastal California is sliding to
the northwest relative to the rest of NorthAmerica
– Los Angeles is slowly moving towards San
Francisco.
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FAULTING
Types of fault
1) Subduction zone interface (underthrust)
faults (Figure 4.2(a)). These result from
tectonic seabed plates spreading apart
and thrusting under the adjacent
continental plates, a phenomenon
common to much of the circum-Pacific
earthquake belt.
2) Compressive, overthrust faults (Figure
4.2(b)). Compressive forces cause
shearing failure forcing the upper
portion upwards, as occurred in San
Fernando, California, in 1971 (also
called reverse or thrust faults).

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 FAULTING
Types of fault
3) Extensional faults (Figure 4.2(c)). This is
the inverse of the previous type,
extensional strains pulling the upper
block down the sloping fault plane
(also called normal faults).
4) Strike-slip faults (Figure 4.2(d)).
Relative horizontal displacement of
the two sides of the fault takes place
along an essentially vertical fault
plane, such as occurred at San
Francisco in 1906 on the San Andreas
fault (also called transcurrent faults).

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 FAULTING
• The ‘focus’ or ‘hypocentre’ of an earthquake is the point
under the surface where the rupture is said to have
originated.
• The projection of the focus on the surface is termed
‘epicentre’.
• The reduction of the focus to a point is the point‐source
approximation (Mallet, 1862). This approximation is used to define
the hypocentral parameters. However, the parameters that define
the focus are similar to those that describe the fault fracture and
motion.
• Foci are located by geographical coordinates, namely latitude and
longitude, the focal depth and the origin or occurrence time.
• Figure 1.8 provides a pictorial depiction of the source parameters,
namely epicentral distance, hypocentral or focal distance and focal
depth.
• Earthquakes are generated by sudden fault slips of brittle rocky
blocks, starting at the focus depth and observed at a site located at
the epicentral distance.

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 FAULTING
• Most earthquakes have focal depths in the range of 5–15 km,
while intermediate events have foci at about 20–50 km and
deep earthquakes occur at 300–700 km underground.
• The three types are also referred to as shallow, intermediate
and deep focus, respectively.
• Crustal earthquakes normally have depths of about 30 km or
less.
• For example, in central California the majority of earthquakes
have focal depths in the upper 5–10 km. Some intermediate
and deep focus earthquakes are located in Romania, the
Aegean Sea and under Spain.
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References

[Link], B. A. 2008. Chapter 01 The nature of earthquake

ground motion. In: NAEIM, F. (ed.) The Seismic Design
Handbook. US: Springer US.
[Link], A. S., & Sarno, L. D. (2015 ). Fundamentals of
Earthquake Engineering: From Source to Fragility. (2nd
ed.).United Kingdom: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Engr. Heber John de Vera
09178370439
[Link]@[Link]

Contact hours: 11:00AM –

05:00PM (T-Th-S)