Ground Motion Simulation Validation using Small-to-Moderate Magnitude Events in the Canterbury, New Zealand Region

Robin L. Lee, Brendon A. Bradley, & Seokho Jeong

Published August 14, 2016, SCEC Contribution #6758, 2016 SCEC Annual Meeting Poster #286

This poster presents preliminary results from ground motion simulations of small-to-moderate magnitude (3<M_W<4.5) earthquake events in the Canterbury region over the past decade, for which centroid moment tensor solutions are available. The simulations are carried out using SPECFEM3D, an open source software package based upon the spectral-element method, and both a regional 1D velocity model and the recently developed 3D Canterbury Velocity Model (CantVM) version 1. The simulated waveforms from both velocity models are compared against observed waveforms at strong motion stations; where it is seen that simulated ground motions utilizing the 3D velocity model provide a better fit to the observed ground motions than those from the 1D velocity model. The results of the forward ground motion simulations presented are being subsequently utilized in tomographic full waveform inversion to improve the CantVM version 1.

Key Words
Canterbury, ground motion simulation validation, spectral element method

Citation
Lee, R. L., Bradley, B. A., & Jeong, S. (2016, 08). Ground Motion Simulation Validation using Small-to-Moderate Magnitude Events in the Canterbury, New Zealand Region. Poster Presentation at 2016 SCEC Annual Meeting.

Related Projects & Working Groups
Ground Motion Simulation Validation (GMSV)