Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America
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Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America; April 1993; v. 83; no. 2; p. 450-468
© 1993 Seismological Society of America
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Seismic hazard assessment through semi-estochastic simulation

F. ALEJANDRO NAVA* and VICTOR H. ESPÍNDOLA

CICESE EARTH SCIENCE DIVISION, P.O. BOX 434843, SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA
INSTITUTO DE GEOFÍSICA UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL AUTÓNOMA DE MÉXICO CIVDAD UNIVERSITARIA, MÉXICO, D.F.; 04510 Mexico

Abstract

A method for the evaluation of seismic hazard for a seismogenic region from catalog seismicity data is presented. This method includes consideration of causal processes involved in elastic energy accumulation that result in the concept of seismic gaps and deals in a stochastic way with random effects that cannot be treated deterministically. The usually scarce information contained in catalogs for any particular seismogenic region corresponding to a seismic gap is used to calibrate a model that describes the distribution of magnitudes as a function of the elastic energy stored in it. Afterwards, distributions of recurrence times for earthquakes of various magnitudes can be obtained from results of long simulations using the calibrated model. The method is applied to the Acapulco-San Marcos, Mexico, region, which is considered as the possible site of a M {approx} 7.5 (or larger) earthquake in the near future. For this region, given that the most recent "gap-filling" M = 7.5 earthquake occurred there in July 1957, the probabilities of an M greater double equals 7.3 event occurring before 1992, 1995, and 2000 are <0.001, <0.001, and 0.011, respectively; those of a not-so-large but still danagerous M greater double equals 7.3 event during the mentioned intervals are 0.012, 0.054, and 0.145, respectively.

Footnotes

* On leave from IGF, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.






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