Universidad de Chile Asociación Chilena de

Departamento de Ingeniería Civil Sismología e Ingeniería Antisísmica

STRONG GROUND MOTION PREDICTION

FOR FUTURE LARGE EARTHQUAKE IN TABRIZ, NW OF IRAN
Masato Tsurugi1, Abdolhossein Fallahi2, Hossein Soltani Jigheh3, and Masakatsu Miyajima4

1 Geo-Research Institute
Osaka. JAPAN
turugi@geor.or.jp
2 Azarbaijan University of Tarbiat Moallem
Tabriz. ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN
fallahi@azaruniv.ac.ir
3 Azarbaijan University of Tarbiat Moallem
Tabriz. ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN
Hsoltani@azaruniv.edu
4 Kanazawa University
Kanazawa. JAPAN
miyajima@t.kanazawa-u.ac.jp

SUMMARY

Strong ground motions from future large earthquake are predicted at Bazaar in Tabriz, north-
west of Islamic Republic of Iran in this paper. Iran is a country with frequent earthquakes same as
Republic of Chile, Japan, United States of America, Republic of Turkey, and Republic of China
(Taiwan) etc. and many human lives and much property lost during past large earthquakes. For
example, more than 30,000 people died and almost 80% of buildings in Bam City, located almost on
the fault, were destroyed by the strong motion during the 2003 Bam Earthquake. The historic
building, Tabriz Bazaar, is picked up as a target site for prediction of strong ground motion in order
to examine earthquake-resisting capacity of the building in this paper. The stochastic Green’s
function method is adopted to predict strong ground motions at a target site. The method is very
useful to simulate and predict strong ground motions. The target fault is North Tabriz fault, its
whole length is over 200km and composed by 6 segments. The predicted strong ground motions are
greater than observed records at Bam City during the 2003 Bam Earthquake and the peak ground
acceleration are estimated over 1g. The predicted strong ground motions will be very useful to
examine earthquake-resisting capacity of the historic building, Bazaar, in Tabriz.

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INTRODUCTION

Strong ground motions from future large earthquake are predicted at the historic building,
Bazaar, in Tabriz, Islamic Republic of Iran in this paper.

Islamic Republic of Iran is a country with frequent earthquakes same as Republic of Chile,
Japan, United States of America, Republic of Turkey, and Republic of China (Taiwan). However,
many historic buildings exist in Iran; these buildings were damaged heavily during past large
earthquakes. For example, Arge Bam which is a historic building in Bam, south-east of Iran, was
destroyed heavily by the strong ground motion during the 2003 Bam Earthquake (Mw: 6.5). The
Arge Bam has been repaired under international financial and technical support. The state
government aims to register the Bazaar as the UNESCO World Heritage. Many historic buildings,
such as Arge Tabriz (Tabriz Castle), Masjede Kabud (Blue Mosque), and Bazaar, exist in Tabriz,
north-west of Iran, too. These buildings are brick structures constructed on about AD1400 or
AD1500. It's very important to prevent historic buildings against future large earthquakes. Strong
ground motion prediction will give basic information to preserve these buildings.

OUTLINE OF ANALYSIS

Strong ground motions are predicted at the historic building, Bazaar (BZR, See Photo 1), in
Tabriz by using the stochastic Green’s function method. This method is very useful to simulate and
predict strong ground motions.

Photo 1 –Inside of Target site, Bazaar (BZR)

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The target fault is North Tabriz fault, its whole length is over 200km. The location of North
Tabriz fault is decided by Hessami et al. (2003). The fault closest distance to BZR is about 2km.
The fault is divided to six segments (from segment A to segment F) based on the strike angle. Figure
1 shows location of North Tabriz fault, its segments and target site, BZR. The authors make six fault
rupture scenarios, such as a case that only one segment rupture individually occurred and several
segments rupture simultaneously occurred. The rupture area and the other parameters of each
scenario are shown in Table 1 and Figure 2. The moment magnitude of each scenario is in the range
from 6.6 to 7.9. The Outer and inner fault parameters are given according to the recipe for predicting
strong ground motions from future large earthquakes proposed by Irikura et al. (2004). For example,
the fault parameters of scenario No.2 is shown in Table 2. Figure 3 shows the location of asperities
and rupture starting points of scenario No.2. Fault slip displacement in asperity area is greater than
that in other area; more rupture energy is generated from asperity area. The largest asperity is
located nearest area to BZR in each case. This location is the worst case for the target site. Several
points are given as rupture starting points and the parametric study is done. For example, seven
points are given as rupture starting points in scenario No.2 (from R1 toR7).

Damping factor on seismic propagation path route, Q-factor, is evaluated by spectral

inversion analysis proposed by Iwata and Irikura (1983) using observed records of four small
earthquakes at three sites. Q-factor is obtained as a function of frequency shown in Equation (1) and
Figure 4.

Q ( f ) = 17.4 × f 1.00 (1)

where, f is frequency.

Site amplification factor, G, is evaluated by very simple method using density and S-wave
velocity of ground surface and seismic bedrock such as Equation (2). 4.8 is used as a site
amplification factor that is not depended on frequency in the prediction.

Figure 1 – Location of target fault and target site (BZR)

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Table 1 –Rupture area etc. of each scenario

Scenario No. No.1 No.2 No.3 No.4 No.5 No.6
Segment C Segment D Segment C
Rupture Area Segment C Segment E Segment D Segment E Segment D All Segment
- - Segment E
Length (km) 22 64 28 70 92 218
Width (km) 18 18 18 18 18 18
Area (km2) 396 1,152 504 1,260 1,656 3,924
Seismic moment
8.72×1018 7.38×1019 1.41×1019 8.83×1019 1.53×1020 8.56×1020
(N･m)
Moment
6.6 7.2 6.7 7.2 7.4 7.9
magnitude

Scenario No.1 Scenario No.2 Scenario No.3

Scenario No.4 Scenario No.5 Scenario No.6

Figure 2 –Fault rupture scenarios

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Table 2 –Outer and inner fault parameters of scenario No.2

Outer fault parameters Inner fault parameters
Upper depth (km) 2 Asperity area
Lower depth (km) 20 Number 2
2
Fault length (km) 64 Total area (km ) 424
Fault width (km) 18 Area ratio (%) 36.8
2
Fault area (km ) 1152 Asperity 1
2
Strike angle (°) 122.4 Area (km ) 280
Dip angle (°) 90 Moment (N･m) 3.99×1019
Rake angle (°) 172 Slip (cm) 430.8
19
Seismic moment (N･m) 7.38×10 Stress drop (MPa) 12.5
Moment magnitude 7.2 Asperity 2
2
Average slip (cm) 193.7 Area (km ) 144
Average stress drop (MPa) 4.6 Moment (N･m) 1.47×1019
Slip (cm) 308.9
Stress drop (MPa) 12.5
Off-asperity area
Area (km2) 728
Moment (N･m) 1.92×1019
Slip (cm) 79.8
Stress drop (MPa) 2.5

: Asperity Area ★: Rupture starting point

Location of BZR
NW ▼ Ground surface SE
Upper depth 2km

Asperity2 2km×9
Asperity1
=18km

★ ★ ★ ★
R6 R7
★ R4 R5 ★ ★
R1 R2 R3
2km×32=64km

Figure 3 –Location of asperities and rupture starting points of Scenario No.2

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Q(f)=17.4×f1.0

Figure 4 –The Obtained Q-value by the spectral inversion method

Figure 5 –The high-cut filter used in the prediction

ρ1 × V S 1
G= (2)
ρ 2 × VS 2

where, ρ1 and ρ 2 are density of seismic bed-rock and ground surface (2.8g/cm3 and 1.8g/cm3), and
VS 1 and VS 2 are S-wave velocity of seismic bed-rock and ground surface (3,000m/s and 200m/s).

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The high-cut filter, P(f), shown in Equation (3) and Figure 5 is adopted in the prediction. The
filter is evaluated by the observed records during the 2005 Fukuoka-ken Seiho-oki earthquake
[Tsurugi et al. (2008)].

1
P( f ) = (3)
2×0.90
 f 
1+  
 6.5 

RESULTS

Figures 6 and Figure 7 show predicted acceleration waveform and Figure 8 show response
spectra (damping: 5%) of predicted motions for the fault rupture scenario No.2. The fault rupture
scenario No.2 is case of only one segment which is the nearest segment to the BZR, segment E,
ruptures individually. The fault length is 64km and seven points are given as rupture starting points
(from R1 to R7). The observed record at Bam during the 2003 Bam earthquake is shown in the
figures, too. The observed record of N008E component at Bam is drawn as NS component and
N278E component is drawn as EW component in these figures. The peak ground accelerations are
estimated in the range from 760cm/s/s to 1,400cm/s/s. The predicted motions at BZR are greater
than the observed record at Bam during the 2003 Bam earthquake.

CONCLUSION

Strong ground motions from future large earthquake are predicted at the historic building,
Bazaar, in Tabriz, north-west of Iran by the stochastic Green’s function method. Target fault is
North Tabriz fault, its whole length is over 200km. The fault parameters are given according to the
recipe for predicting strong ground motions from future large earthquakes. The predicted motions at
Bazaar are greater than the observed record at Bam during the 2003 Bam earthquake. If the North
Tabriz fault will rupture, heavy damage will be predicted. The predicted strong ground motions will
be very useful to examine earthquake-resisting capacity of historic building.
The site amplification factor which is evaluated by very simple method is used in this
prediction. We will estimate the site amplification factor by accurate method such as evaluating by
one-dimensional ground structure model based on the result of PS logging test or empirical method
using observed seismic records.
The method introduced in this paper can be applied in Republic of Chile and other countries.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This study was supported in part by the Grant-in Aid for Science Research from the Ministry
of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan (No. 21254001).

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REFERENCES

1. Hessami, K., D. Pantosti, H. Tabassi, E. Shabanian, M. R. Abbassi, K. Feghhi and S. Salaymani,

"Paleoearth-quakes and slip rates of the North Tabriz fault, NW Iran: Preliminary results." Annals of
Geophysics, Vol.46, No.5, 2003: 903-915.
2. Irikura,K., H. Miyake, T. Iwata, K. Kamae, H. Kawabe, and L. A. Dalguer, "Recipe for predicting
strong ground motions from future large earthquakes," Proceedings of the 13th World Conference
on Earthquake Engineering, 2004: No.1341.
3. Iwata, T., and K. Irikura, 1988. "Source parameters of the 1983 Japan Sea earthquake sequence,"
Journal of Physics of Earth, Vol.36, 1988: 155-184.
4. Tsurugi, M., T. Kagawa, and K. Irikura, 2008. "Study on high-cut frequency characteristics of
ground motions for inland crustal earthquakes in Japan". Proceedings of the 14th World Conference
on Earthquake Engineering, 2008: No.02-0036.

Figure 6 –Predicted acceleration waveform (from R1 to R7) and

observed record at Bam (Right bottom wave) (NS Component)

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Figure 7 –Predicted acceleration waveform (from R1 to R7) and

observed record at Bam (Right bottom wave) (EW Component)

Figure 8 –Response spectra of predicted motions (Left: NS Comp., Right: EW Comp.)

Black line: Predicted motions (7 cases of rupture starting points)
Red line: Observed record at Bam