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Comment on "3D Site Effects: A Thorough Analysis of a High-Quality Dataset," by F. J. Chávez-García, J. Castillo, and W. R. Stephenson

Department of Structural Engineering
Politecnico di Milano
Piazza L. da Vinci 32
I-20133 Milano Italy

The first 300 words of the full text of this article appear below.

	Introduction

 
Chávez-García et al. (2002) presented an analysis of 64 weak motion events recorded by a temporary digital seismometer array operating at Parkway Valley, New Zealand, from 1 August to mid-October 1995. The most significant record was obtained on 11 August, for a M_L 4.9 earthquake at 80-km epicentral distance, with a peak ground acceleration of 1 Gal and a peak ground velocity of 5 mm/sec.

The main indication of their analysis was that ground motion is dominated by surface waves, originating at the northern edge of the valley and propagating southward, mainly in the direction of the sloping base of the valley. They also gave much emphasis to a supposed contradiction between this result and the finding reported by Paolucci et al. (2000), that the ground motion in the frequency band around 1.6 Hz shows a clear pattern related to the 2D fundamental vibration mode of the valley.

Chávez-García et al. (2002) argued that Paolucci et al. (2000) were "deceived" by the simultaneous arrivals of surface waves at the stations along the different alignments considered (Fig. 1), the alignments being roughly perpendicular to the main direction of propagation of surface waves. According to the same authors, the error of Paolucci et al. (2000, p. 1950) was originated by considering only "groups of stations, instead of all of them together."

View larger version (28K): [in this window] [in a new window]   Figure 1. Detail of Parkway Valley with the station numbers and the alignments considered by Paolucci et al. (2000).

We will briefly recall the main considerations that lead us to the previous conclusions, including further results, to show that the contradiction is only apparent and that the occurrence of a 2D in-plane resonance pattern cannot be ruled out at all by the arguments of Chávez-García et al. (2002. . . [Full Text of this Article]

2D Resonance Pattern Inferred from Records

	2D Numerical Results

 

	Discussion and Conclusions