Simulation of Strong Ground Motion Scenario in the Greater Beijing Area Caused by the 1679 M8 Sanhe-Pinggu Earthquake

Abstract eng:
The great Sanhe-Pinggu earthquake (M~8, with the maximum intensity of XI at the epicenter and VIII in Beijing city) occurred in September, 1679 is the largest historic event in the past 500 years within a 100-km radius from the center of Beijing. A detailed comprehension of the ground motion scenario caused by this earthquake will provide valuable information for seismic hazard reduction in the metropolitan Beijing area. Numerical simulation of seismic wave propagation and strong ground motion using high performance computational methods is a proven tool in seismic hazard zonation and local site effect assessment based on scenario earthquakes. We studied the effect of the 1679 Sanhe-Pinggu M8 earthquake in Beijing area with the staggered grid pseudospectral time domain (PSTD) method, with stretched coordinate perfectly matched layer (PML) absorption boundary conditions. The epicenter of this great event was about 60 km ENE of the center of Beijing city. The simulated seismic source is the distributed 5-m right-lateral, strike-slip rupture along the ~150 km long, NE oriented near-vertical Xiadian Fault. The seismic wave propagation is simulated for up to 1 Hz. The grid size is about 0.18 km. High resolution near-surface velocity structure obtained by the newly acquired microtremor data was incorporated in the crust model. The result suggests that numerical modeling approach is effective in seismic hazard assessment and provides valuable information for mitigating losses for possible earthquakes in the future. This project is supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China with Project No. 2006DFA21650 and the Institute of Earthquake Science (Project No.0207690229).

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