Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, Vol. 104, No. 2, pp. 840–854, April 2014, doi: 10.

1785/0120130041

Scaling Relationships of Source Parameters of M w 6.9–8.1 Earthquakes

in the Cocos–Rivera–North American Subduction Zone
by Alejandro Ramírez-Gaytán, Jorge Aguirre, Miguel A. Jaimes, and Víctor Huérfano

Abstract Seven slip models currently available from kinematic inversions, derived
from near-source strong-motion and teleseismic body waves in the 0–1.25 Hz fre-
quency range from Mexico’s subduction zone, are used to estimate source-scaling
relationships applicable to the region. Our results are compared with existing scaling
relations for subduction environments. The relationships for the rupture area of our
results are closer to those of Somerville et al. (2002) than to any other, but, like the
others, they have smaller areas than predicted by Somerville et al. (2002). Concerning
the combined area of asperities, Murotani et al. (2008) and our results predict smaller
areas than those obtained by Somerville et al. (2002). Concerning the area of largest
asperity, the relationships obtained in this study are slightly smaller than those de-
scribed by Somerville et al. (2002); this is a consistent result with the relationships
of total rupture area and combined area of asperities. In general, the error estimates for
the constrained equations derived in this study in all cases are smaller than those re-
lationships compared here. This might suggest that the expressions obtained in this
study could be appropriate for the simulations of strong ground motion for a specific
scenario of earthquake slip in the region. Also, these results could be an indication that
the relationships vary depending on a specific subduction tectonic region. On the other
hand, Aguirre and Irikura (2007) estimated the source area for 31 Mexican earth-
quakes using corner frequencies; these areas show close resemblance with those pre-
dicted by the relationships derived in this study. Based on these findings, an important
implication is that two different methodologies to determine the total area of asperities
based on either low- or high-frequency data generate similar results.

Online Material: Figures of fault models.

Introduction
Simulation of earthquake scenarios is a topic of rel-
evance in countries with a high rate of seismic activity, such
as Mexico. A standard procedure to evaluate seismic hazard
is based on simulation of ground motions generated by active
faults. It has been demonstrated that asperities within the rup-
ture area control specific characteristics of ground motions
(Miyake et al., 2004). Also, these relationships allow mod-
elers to understand the seismic source and generate response
spectra, both useful pieces of information in structural engi-
neering. Therefore, quantitative estimation of the size and
slip of the asperities is important in modeling the source
for predicting ground motions.
Several methods are used to simulate strong ground
motions from potential seismic sources; one of them is the
so-called source-scaling relationships. Recent studies related
the features of an earthquake source via the scaling of slip
distributions (e.g., Somerville et al., 1999; Mai and Beroza,
2000), slip complexity (e.g., Mai and Beroza, 2002; Lavallée
and Archuleta, 2003), in terms of rupture area to the seismic
moment for plate-boundary earthquakes (Kanamori and
Anderson, 1975), and in terms of rupture area to the moment
magnitude (Wells and Coppersmith, 1994). The influence of
slip heterogeneities in the prediction of strong ground motion
within a subduction zone has been investigated by Somer-
ville et al. (2002), using worldwide events, and recently by
Murotani et al. (2008), who focused on Japanese events.
Blaser et al. (2010) and Strasser et al. (2010) derive source-
scaling relations between rupture dimensions and moment
magnitude for subduction-zone earthquakes. In general,
these relationships establish equations useful in the genera-
tion of strong ground motions.
Another method used to simulate strong ground motions
from potential seismic sources is the empirical Green’s func-
tion method (EGFM). This is a good alternative methodology
for simulating strong ground motion produced by large-
magnitude earthquakes. This method requires a small-

840
Scaling Relationships of Source Parameters of Mw 6.9–8.1 Earthquakes
magnitude earthquake (element event) with a hypocenter
close to the main earthquake (target event) that will be simu-
lated. The broadband modeling process developed and
detailed by Irikura (1986) produces in the end a source model
in which synthetic strong ground motions share the best re-
semblance with observed records of the main earthquake; it
is from these final models that the source parameters are es-
timated. There are two important characteristics of the strong
ground motions generated by EGFM. First, the information of
crustal structure and site effects are included in the simula-
tions. Because records of the element event used as a seed
already include them, instrumentation and detailed studies to
determine the crustal structure and site effects are not neces-
sary. Second, EGFM modeling is possible in the 0.1–10 Hz
frequency interval. This is relevant for civil engineering be-
cause it is in this frequency range that many buildings,
bridges, and civil constructions have their dominant vibra-
tion frequency.
Recently, some studies have been conducted in Mexico
to simulate strong ground motions of important earthquakes
using EGFM (e.g., Aguirre, 2005; Garduño, 2006; Ramírez-
Gaytán et al., 2010). In these studies, source parameters that
were estimated, such as the combined area of asperities and
area of largest asperities, are poorly matched with the relation-
ships proposed by Somerville et al. (2002). In their compari-
son, two important facts arise: (1) EGFM is a method capable
of modeling strong-motion generation areas (SMGA), which
are defined as finite extent areas with relatively large slip
velocity within the total rupture area, and (2) the waveform
inversions capture the presence of asperities (characterized
by heterogeneous slip distribution) based on low-frequency
(< 1 Hz) ground motions. Based on these descriptions, the
following questions arise: what do the two methods of study-
ing the source in different frequency bands have in common,
how much energy is radiated in the high-frequency band, and
how can high frequencies be included in their approach.
Miyake et al. (2003) showed that the SMGA generated from
0.2–10 Hz frequency ranges coincide with the areas of the
asperities of heterogeneous slip distributions derived from
low-frequency (< 1 Hz) waveform inversions for crustal
earthquakes. In the same study, Miyake et al. (2003) showed
that SMGA contain both low- and high-frequency information
and that quantified SMGA have the ability to perform the
broadband ground-motion simulation.
Based on the preceding discussion, we have compared
the scaling relationships between seismic moment and the
source parameters estimated using EGFM (combined area
of asperities, area of largest asperity) with those relationships
proposed by Somerville et al. (2002) for the studies conducted
on the important Mexican earthquakes mentioned here
(Aguirre, 2005; Garduño, 2006; Ramírez-Gaytán et al., 2010).
The results of this comparison show a poor fit. These results
might suggest the need to develop specific source-scaling
relationships for Mexican subduction earthquakes.
In this study, we develop new scaling relationships for
earthquakes occurring in the Cocos–Rivera–North American
841
subduction zone in Mexico. However, the accuracy of
source-scaling relationships depends strongly on the number
of kinematic inversions considered in the study. Somerville
et al. (1999) used 15 kinematic models from crustal earth-
quakes, and Somerville et al. (2002) used 10 kinematic mod-
els from interplate subduction-zone earthquakes. Asano and
Iwata (2011) used five kinematic models from inland crustal
earthquakes in Japan. In our study, despite the fact that in
Mexico kinematic inversions are scarce, we utilized the data
provided for seven earthquakes in the Mexican subduction
environment whose kinematic inversion is currently avail-
able. With these data and as a product of this work, we gen-
erate new source-scaling relationships to simulate strong
ground motion applicable to Mexican subduction-zone mega-
thrust earthquakes between the Cocos–Rivera and North
American plates.
As a secondary task, we compare our results with the
scaling relationships for subduction earthquakes first pro-
posed by Somerville et al. (2002) and with the other important
recently developed scaling relations for subduction environ-
ments: Murotani et al. (2008), Blaser et al. (2010), and
Strasser et al. (2010). Murotani et al. (2008) characterized
source rupture models with heterogeneous slip of plate boun-
dary earthquakes in the Japan region. The slip models used are
based on 26 estimates of 11 plate boundary earthquakes con-
structed by waveform inversions of strong ground motions,
teleseismic, geodetic, or tsunami data. The source-scaling re-
lationships that specifically relate seismic moment to rupture
area, average slip, and combined area of asperities derived by
Murotani et al. (2008) will be compared subsequently with
our results. Strasser et al. (2010) derived source-scaling rela-
tions between rupture dimensions and moment magnitude for
subduction-zone earthquakes, distinguishing interface events
from intraslab events. They use a database that includes 139
models corresponding to 95 interface events and 21 models
corresponding to 20 intraslab events. The relationship that
involves the rupture area versus moment magnitude for inter-
face events derived from Strasser et al. (2010) will be com-
pared with the equivalent relationship derived in this study.
Blaser et al. (2010) compiled a large database of source
parameter estimates of 283 earthquakes for which all focal
mechanisms are represented, and specifically the focus is on
subduction-zone events. The product of rupture length and
width for subduction-zone earthquakes and continental thrust
events derived by Blaser et al. (2010) will be compared with
the rupture area estimates in our study.
Data
In this study, we have taken results of seven kinematic
inversions available from earthquakes in the Cocos–Rivera
and North American plates’ subduction environment in
Mexico (Table 1 and Fig. 1). These inversions consider results
of thrust-faulting earthquakes with moment magnitudes from
6.9 to 8.1 that occurred within the last 26 years (1979–2003).
These results are composed of six kinematic inversions,
 Table 1
842

Fault Parameters from the Heterogeneous Slip Models

Date Longitude; Depth Strike; Dip; Vr Sc Average Sl Le We
Reference* Event Name† (yyyy/mm/dd)‡ Latitude (°)† M 0 (N·m)† Mw † (km)† S (km2 )§ Rake (°)† (km=s)† (km=s)§ Slip (m)§ (km2 )§ (km)† (km)†

1 Petatlán 1979/03/14 −101.46; 17.46 1:37 × 1020 7.39 15.00 10 293; 14; 90 3.3 3800 0.288 3600 120 120
2 Playa Azul 1981/10/25 −102.24; 17.74 8:49 × 1019 7.25 15.00 2700 300; 14; 90 2.6 400 0.746 400 60 70
3 Michoacán 1985/09/19 −102.57; 18.18 1:15 × 1021 8.01 17.00 25020 300; 14; 72 2.6 5004 1.390 3127.5 180 139
4 Zihuatanejo 1985/09/21 −101.82; 17.6 1:53 × 1020 7.42 20.00 3500 300; 14; 100 2.6 1250 1.028 1250 90 90
5 San Marcos 1989/04/25 −99.12; 16.83‡ 2:4 × 1019 ‡ 6.90‡ 17.30‖ 2520‖ 276; 10; 66‡ – 324§ 1.265§ 324§ 60‖ 42‖
6 Manzanillo 1995/10/09 −104.58; 18.86 9:67 × 1020 7.96 16.55 17000 309; 14; 92 2.8 3400 1.355 2100 200 100
7 Tecomán 2003/01/22 −104.13; 18.71 2:30 × 1020 7.50 20.00 5950 300; 22; 93 3.5 1075 0.607 700 70 85

M 0 , seismic moment for slip subduction models; M w , moment magnitude; S, dimension of rupture area; V r , rupture velocity; Sc , estimated combined area of asperities; Sl , estimated area of
largest asperity; W e and Le , estimated effective width and length fault dimensions.
*1, Mendoza (1995); 2 and 4, Mendoza (1993); 3, Mendoza and Hartzell (1989); 5, Singh et al. (1989); 6, Mendoza and Hartzell (1999); 7, Yagi et al. (2004).
†
Information is from SRCMOD, Martin Mai’s Database of Finite-Source Rupture Models (see Data and Resources).
‡
Information is from the Global Centroid Moment Tensor (CMT) project catalog (1976–2013).
§The source parameters determined in this study.
‖
Information is from Singh et al. (1989).
A. Ramírez-Gaytán, J. Aguirre, M. A. Jaimes, and V. Huérfano
Scaling Relationships of Source Parameters of Mw 6.9–8.1 Earthquakes
Figure 1. Distribution of Mexican earthquakes for which slip
models were available as of the present study. Events 1–7 are
the events used in this study. Events 8 and 9 represent the events
excluded from the present analysis. The color version of this figure
is available only in the electronic edition.
compiled primarily based on the SRCMOD database from
Martin Mai and coworkers (see Data and Resources), from
which subduction events have been extracted. Further, we
added the study that describes the rupture process of the 25
April 1989 M w 6.9 San Marcos event (Singh et al., 1989).
Table 2 presents the frequency range and type of data used
on the kinematic inversion of earthquakes involved in this
study. With the exception of the study of the San Marcos earth-
quake (which used only strong ground motion records), slip
models were constructed by waveform inversions primarily
from teleseismic data; there are 117 components from tele-
seismic data that represent 77.48% of data and 34 components
from strong-motion data that represent 22.52% of data (Ta-
ble 2). In this study, we compare our results with those ob-
tained by Somerville et al. (2002). Table 3 presents the
frequency range and type of data used for Somerville et al.’s
kinematic inversion of earthquakes. As shown in Table 3, we
found that from the 10 slip models used by Somerville et al.
(2002), and similarly to the tendency of data used in our study,
these were constructed primarily from teleseismic data. There
are 201 components from teleseismic data that represent
84.10% of data and 38 components from strong-motion data
that represent 15.90% of data. The comparison between the
percentages of teleseismic and strong ground motion data
used in both studies do not show significant differences. In
general in both studies, the quantity of teleseismic data is
larger than strong-motion data. Also, Tables 2 and 3 show that,
in both studies (with the exception of the study of the San Mar-
cos earthquake), the inversions are derived from ground-
displacement waveforms in the 0–1.25 Hz frequency range.
In addition to the seven studies shown in Table 1, there
are two other studies available from Mexico: the kinematic
inversions of the Michoacán earthquake of 11 January 1997
(Santoyo et al., 2005) and the Oaxaca earthquake of 30 Sep-
843
tember 1999 (Castro and Ruiz-Cruz, 2005). However, these
studies were excluded from the analysis because the events
are not thrust-faulting but normal-faulting earthquakes. In
order to conduct an adequate comparison with relationships
proposed by Somerville et al. (2002) in this study, we take
only the seven reverse-slip subduction earthquakes available
at this time.
Methodology
The first step in processing the information was to esti-
mate the total rupture area and the number of asperities. The
rupture area dimensions of the inverted slip models are fre-
quently overestimated in order to accommodate the entire
fault rupture into a rectangular area. We reduced the dimen-
sions of the rectangular slips models in order to consider just
the area with significant slip contribution. We apply a standard
criterion for trimming the edges, as proposed by Somerville
et al. (1999). The trimmed fault is then defined as the total
rupture area. In our study and throughout the present paper,
we follow the criteria of Somerville et al. (1999) to define this
and other source parameters: rupture area A, average slip D,
combined area of asperities Aa , area of largest asperities AL ,
and hypocentral distance to the center of the closest asperitiy
RA , among others. These were examined, quantified, and
scaled with respect to seismic moment M0 , using a regression
analysis method. Ⓔ The fault models for the earthquakes used
in this study and identification of asperities on them are avail-
able in the electronic supplement to this article.
Regression Analysis Method
The empirical relationships of source parameters ob-
tained by Somerville et al. (2002) are of the form
Y
α × Mβ0 ; 1
in which constants α and β are functions of the seismic mo-
ment M0 in newton meters. This form is adopted in the
present paper, and constants α and β were determined by
regression analysis of the obtained data (Table 4). For the
purpose of the regression analyses, it is useful to recast equa-
tion (1) to the form
y
a  β × x; 2
in which y
lnY, a
lnα, and x
lnM 0 . The values
of a and slope β in equation (2) were determined by mini-
mizing the squared error between the available and computed
seismic source parameters. Then α was back-calculated from
the relationship a
lnα. We use equation (3) to estimate
the standard error:
s














































Pn

i
1 yi − a  β xi 
2
se
; 3
n − 2
844 A. Ramírez-Gaytán, J. Aguirre, M. A. Jaimes, and V. Huérfano

Table 2
Frequency Range and Type of Data Used in the Kinematic Inversion of Earthquakes Involved in This Study
Event Number Name of Earthquake Date (yyyy/mm/dd) References SGM* TS† Fmin (Hz) Fmax (Hz)

1 Petatlán 1979/03/14 Mendoza (1995) 0 15 0.01 0.2

2 Playa Azul 1981/10/25 Mendoza (1993) 0 15 0.00 0.2
3 Michoacán 1985/09/19 Mendoza and Hartzell (1989) 4 13 0.00 0.5
4 Zihuatanejo 1985/09/21 Mendoza (1993) 0 24 0.00 0.5
5 San Marcos 1989/04/25 Singh et al. (1989) 12 0 0.05 1.25
6 Manzanillo 1995/10/09 Mendoza and Hartzell (1999) 0 38 0.02 0.5
7 Tecomán 2003/01/22 Yagi et al. (2004) 18 12 0.01 0.5
Total 34 117 – –

All data, except that of the San Marcos earthquake (event 5) are provided from Martin Mai’s SRCMOD Database of Finite-Source
Rupture Models (see Data and Resources). Data for the San Marcos earthquake are from Singh et al. (1989).
*Number of strong ground motion component data used in the inversion.
†Number of teleseismic component data used in the inversion.

Table 3
Frequency Range and Type of Data Used for Kinematic Inversion of Earthquakes Described in Somerville et al. (2002)
Event Number Name Date (yyyy/mm/dd) References SGM* TS† Fmin (Hz) Fmax (Hz)

1‡ Kanto 1923/09/01 Wald and Somerville (1995) 0 6 0.00 0.1

2§ Tonankai 1944/12/07 Ichinose et al. (2003) 13 10 0.00 0.5
3‡,‖ Peru 1974/10/03 Hartzell and Langer (1993) 0 32 0.00 0.2
4‖ Peru 1974/10/09 Hartzell and Langer (1993) 0 38 – –
5‡ Petatlán 1979/03/14 Mendoza (1995) 0 15 0.01 0.2
6‡ Playa Azul 1981/10/25 Mendoza (1993) 0 15 0.00 0.2
7‡ Valparaiso 1985/03/03 Mendoza et al. (1994) 12 16 0.1 0.5
8‡ Michoacán 1985/09/19 Mendoza and Hartzell (1989) 4 13 0.00 0.5
9‡ Ziuathanejo 1985/09/21 Mendoza (1993) 0 24 0.00 0.5
10‡ Hokkaido 1993/07/12 Mendoza and Fukuyama (1996) 9 32 0.05 0.5
Total 38 201 – –

*Number of strong ground motion component data used in the inversion.

†
Number of teleseismic component data used in the inversion.
‡
Information for events 1, 3, and 5–10 is provided from Martin Mai’s SRCMOD Database of Finite-Source Rupture Models (see Data and
Resources).
§
Information for event 2 (1944, Tonankai earthquake, Ms 8.01) is taken directly from Ichinose et al. (2003).
‖
Information for event 3 (3 October 1974, Mw 8.0, Peru earthquake), is from Martin Mai’s SRCMOD Database of Finite-Source Rupture
Models (see Data and Resources). However, because information for its largest aftershock, event 4 (9 November 1974, M s 7.1) does not
appear in the database, the information is taken directly from Hartzell and Langer (1993)

in which yi
lnY i  is the observed value (with Y i as the
available data); a  βxi 
lnα  β lnM oi  is the com-
puted value of the ith data point; and n is the total number
of data points. This procedure leads to values of α and β for
equation (1) to represent the best fit, in the least-squared sense,
of the available data. Thereby, we generated new source-
scaling relationships. After completing this process, the new
relationships were compared with the worldwide large-
magnitude (Mw 7.1–8.1) subduction earthquakes obtained
by Somerville et al. (2002) and other published relationships.
In kinematic inversions, the area of asperities depends
on rupture velocity. The rupture velocities of the earthquakes
used here are listed in Table 1. These values show a narrow
range from 2.6 to 3:5 km=s, with an average value of
2:9 km=s. However, there is no evidence of the rupture ve-
locity’s dependence on seismic moment. On the other hand,
asperities of large earthquakes may be estimated within the
first few days of aftershocks. The definition of aftershocks
does not vary as a function of rupture velocity. It will be
interesting to conduct future studies to compare aftershocks
and asperities defined by kinematic models for Mexican
earthquakes. For the seven earthquakes studied here, it is dif-
ficult to estimate the area of the aftershock region because
there is not enough information available that indicates their
locations. At minimum, this comparison will require accurate
location of aftershocks—information that, for some of the
earthquakes studied here, is not available.
Results
By analyzing the properties of individual asperities, we
concluded that the number of asperities in the slip models
ranges from 1 to 4. A total of 13 asperities of the seven earth-
quakes were used here, with an average of 2.04 asperities.
The sum of the area for all asperities is only 19.57% of the
overall rupture area. The largest asperity covers approxi-
mately 13.9% of the overall rupture area.
Scaling Relationships of Source Parameters of Mw 6.9–8.1 Earthquakes 845

Scaling Relationships Derived in This Study When Assuming Self-Similarity
Parameter
Rupture area (A)
Average slip (D)
Combined area of asperities (Aa )
Area of largest asperity (AL )
Hypocentral distance to center
of closest asperity (RA )
Hypocentral distance to center
of largest asperity (Ra )
Overall slip duration (T s )
Table 4
Unit Results Analysis Type
km 2
Unconstrained
Self-similar scaling with β
2=3
Somerville et al. (2002)
Murotani et al. (2008)
Strasser et al. (2010)
Blaser et al. (2010)
m Unconstrained
Self-similar scaling with β
1=3
Somerville et al. (2002)
Murotani et al. (2008)
km 2
Unconstrained
Self-similar scaling with β
2=3
Somerville et al. (2002)
Murotani et al. (2008)
km 2
Unconstrained
Self-similar scaling with β
2=3
Somerville et al. (2002)
km Unconstrained
Self-similar scaling with β
1=3
Somerville et al. (2002)
km Unconstrained
Self-similar scaling with β
1=3
s Unconstrained
Self-similar scaling with β
1=3
Somerville et al. (2002)
Best-Fit se *
−8
A
1:87 × 10 M0:570
0 0.568
A
1:99 × 10−10 M 2=3
0 0.587
A
2:41 × 10−10 M 2=3
0 0.630
A
1:48 × 10−10 M 2=3
0 0.684
†
log10 A
−3:476  0:952 × Mw 0.758
log L
−2:69  0:64 × Mw ‡ 1.233
log W
−1:12  0:33 × M w ‡
D
8:45 × 10−3 M0:099
0 0.606
D
1:43 × 10−7 M1=3
0 0.704
D
1:14 × 10−7 M1=3
0 0.751
D
1:48 × 10−7 M1=3
0 0.706
Aa
1:74 × 10−11 M0:684
0 0.669
Aa
3:99 × 10−11 M2=3
0 0.667
Aa
5:62 × 10−11 M2=3
0 0.839
Aa
2:89 × 10−11 M2=3
0 0.708
AL
7:78 × 10−9 M 0:550
0 0.652
AL
3:25 × 10−11 M 2=3
0 0.676
AL
4:12 × 10−11 M 2=3
0 0.732
RA
2:74 × 10−3 M 0:177
0 0.870
RA
1:81 × 10−6 M 1=3
0 0.902
RA
3:79 × 10−6 M 1=3
0 1.257
Ra
2:41 × 10−5 M0:280
0 1.081
Ra
2:00 × 10−6 M1=3
0 1.085
T S
1:52 × 10−6 M0:309
0 1.161
T S
4:80 × 10−7 M1=3
0 1.162
T S
7:80 × 10−7 M1=3
0 1.296

*The standard error estimate for each regression, M 0 in newton meters.

†
The relationship in terms of moment magnitude obtained by assuming self-similar scaling. M w is an independent variable we have
converted to seismic moment by M w
2=3 log10 M 0  − 6:033 (M 0 is in newton meters; Hanks and Kanamori, 1979). Coefficient b is
forced to 1 to reflect direct proportionality between seismic moment and rupture area by assuming self-similar scaling (Strasser
et al., 2010).
‡Because Blaser et al. (2010) did not derive relationships for rupture area directly from the data, we simply multiply rupture length L and

width W, derived by them.

Figure 2 and Table 4 show the relationships between and

seismic moment and each seismic source parameter obtained D
in this study. For each parameter, the unconstrained equation
k2 : 5
L
(Fig. 2, black continuous lines) is shown first, followed by
the equation that imposes self-similarity (Fig. 2, gray con- So in equation (6), we rewrite the scalar seismic moment as
tinuous lines). The scaling self-similarity forces the coeffi-
cient β in equation (1) to reflect direct proportionality M0
μ × D

× W × L
μ × k 1 × k 2 × L3 : 6
between seismic moment and source parameters as described
From this, M 0 ∝ L3 (Lay and Wallace, 1995), and, therefore,
after equation (6).
M01=3 ∝ L, as D
is proportional to M 1=3
0 and the surface area
The scalar seismic moment is defined as the product of
that includes two dimensions is proportional to M 02=3 . This
the fault surface area, average displacement on the fault, and
condition is also known as the self-similar source model.
the rigidity of the rock. The assumption of constant stress
The self-similar model is convenient to use because it
drop leads to the static similarity condition, constant fault
provides a reasonably good description of the phenomena
aspect ratio, and constant strain (equations 4 and 5):
(Somerville et al., 1999). In this analysis of large-magnitude
Mexican subduction earthquakes, we found that scaling the
W fault parameters with the seismic moment fits reasonably

k1 ; 4
L well with a self-similar scaling model. For the case of the
846 A. Ramírez-Gaytán, J. Aguirre, M. A. Jaimes, and V. Huérfano

(a) 100000 (b) 10

Rupture Area (km2)

Average Slip (m)

10000 1

1000 0.1

(c) 10000 (d) 10000

Combined Area of Asperities (km2)

Area of Largest Asperity (km2)

1000 1000

100 100

(e) 100 (f) 1000

Hypocentral Distance to Center of

Hypocentral Distance to Center of

Largest Asperities (km)
Closest Asperities (km)

100

10

10

1 1
1×1019 1×1020 1×1021 1×1022
(g) 100 Seismic Moment (N •m)
Overall Slip Duration (s)

10

0.1
1×1019 1×1020 1×1021 1×1022
Seismic Moment (N •m)

Figure 2. Regression results of the source-scaling relations of this study. In all cases (a–g), we show the relation between seismic moment
versus the following: (a) rupture area, (b) average slip, (c) combined area of asperities, (d) area of largest asperity, (e) hypocentral distance to
center of closest asperity, (f) hypocentral distance to center of largest asperity, and (g) overall slip duration. In all cases, filled circles indicate
the events, black continuous lines are the results of this study (unconstrained), gray lines are the fit when self-similar scaling is assumed, and
dashed lines are the 95% confidence intervals for the mean when self-similar scaling is assumed.

relationship of average slip versus seismic moment, the un- 1. unconstrained regression analysis to estimate α and β;
constrained relationship suggests a non-self-similar scaling. 2. self-similar scaling regressions to estimate α while the
For this case, the physical interpretation suggests the absence value of β is forced to be 2=3 (for rupture area, combined
of a scale factor in the average slip of Mexican subduction area of asperities, and area of largest asperity) or 1=3 (for
earthquakes. However, as can be appreciated from Figure 2b, average slip, hypocentral distance to the center of the
the data are dispersed and do not show a clear tendency. closest asperity, hypocentral distance to the center of the
Note that the standard deviation (Table 4) is smaller than that largest asperity, and overall slip duration);
of Somerville et al. (2002), even for the self-similar as- 3. self-similar scaling regression with values of α and β that
sumption. The results shown in Table 4 follow the regression were fixed according to Somerville et al. (2002) to deter-
analysis given by equation (1) for: mine the standard error se (values of α and β from
Scaling Relationships of Source Parameters of Mw 6.9–8.1 Earthquakes
Somerville et al. were computed to be compatible with
units used in this work); and
4. standard errors were estimated for comparison with other
publications of source scaling for subduction zone earth-
quakes (Murotani et al., 2008; Blaser et al., 2010;
Strasser et al., 2010). se was determined by computing
the mean square error between the available data and
computed values from the relationships. Relationships
expressed in terms of moment magnitude, as the indepen-
dent variable, have been converted to seismic moment by
Mw
2=3 log10 M 0  − 6:033 (M 0 is in newton meters;
Hanks and Kanamori, 1979).
These regression analyses, which use the data from all
earthquakes (Table 1), lead to the equations and data pro-
vided in Table 4. Figure 2 provides a visual representation
for each equation obtained from each regression analysis:
a dark continuous line shows the unconstrained relationship,
gray lines are the fit when self-similar scaling is assumed
together with the available data (filled circles), and dashed
lines correspond to the 95% confidence intervals for the
mean when self-similar scaling is assumed for each seismic
source parameter. As stated previously, Figure 2 provides a
graphical view of data scattering of the seismic source
parameters relative to curves from regression analyses. As
expected, self-similar scaling regression generally implies
large error of estimated se (Table 4), showing larger scatter
of the data about the best-fit curve.
Source Scaling
The relationship between rupture area A (km2 ) and seis-
mic moment M0 (N·m) determined without constraining the
slope is (Fig. 2a)
A
1:87 × 10−8 M0:570
0 : 7
By self-similar scaling of the slope to be 2=3, the relationship
is
A
1:99 × 10−10 M 02=3 : 8
From the self-similar scaling equations (see Fig. 3a and
Table 4) provided by Somerville et al. (2002), Murotani et al.
(2008), Strasser et al. (2010), and Blaser et al. (2010), se val-
ues are 0.630, 0.684, 0.758, and 1.233, respectively. In all
four cases, these values are greater than estimated by the
self-similar scaling equation with respect to the estimated
rupture area of large-magnitude Mexican subduction earth-
quakes (se
0:587). These results are examined in the Dis-
cussion section. The relationship between average slip D (m)
and seismic moment M0 (N·m) determined without con-
straining the slope is (Fig. 2b)
D
8:45 × 10−1 M0:099 : 9
0
By self-similar scaling of the slope to be 1=3, the relationship
is
847
D
1:43 × 10−5 M 1=3
0 : 10
From the self-similar scaling equations provided by
Somerville et al. (2002) and Murotani et al. (2008), se is
0.751, and 0.706, respectively; these values are greater than
those found by the constrained equation that estimates the
average slip of large-magnitude Mexican subduction earth-
quakes (se
0:704). These results show a close resemblance
between the relationship derived in this study and those pro-
posed by Murotani et al. (2008). The scaling law of com-
bined area of asperities Aa (km2 ) and seismic moment M0
(N·m) determined without constraining the slope is (Fig. 2c)
Aa
1:74 × 10−11 M 0:684 : 11
0
By self-similar scaling of the slope to be 2=3, the relationship
is
Aa
3:99 × 10−11 M2=3
0 : 12
As shown in Figure 2c, the self-similar scaling equation
indicates that the estimated combined area of asperities of
large-magnitude Mexican subduction-zone earthquakes
shows a clear dependence on seismic moment. The relation-
ships in equations (8), (10), and (12) provide smaller values
than the self-similar scaling equation provided by Somerville
et al. (2002). In this study, the area covered by asperities is
19.4% of the total rupture area, which is smaller than the
25% proposed by Somerville et al. (2002). Table 4 shows
that, for the constrained equation provided by Somerville
et al. (2002) and Murotani et al. (2008), the se values are
0.839 and 0.708, respectively. These results are larger than
those found by the constrained equation that estimates the
combined area of asperities of large-magnitude Mexican sub-
duction earthquakes (se
0:667). The relationship between
area of largest asperity AL (km2 ) and seismic moment M0
(N·m) determined without constraining the slope is (Fig. 2d)
AL
7:78 × 10−9 M 0:55 13
0 :
By self-similar scaling of the slope to be 2=3, the relationship
is
AL
3:25 × 10−11 M 02=3 : 14
As shown in Figure 2d, the comparison of both con-
strained equations indicates that the estimated area of the
largest asperity of large-magnitude Mexican subduction
earthquakes is smaller than the constrained equation pro-
vided by Somerville et al. (2002). The area of the largest
asperity for the two relationships compared in this study
shows a clear dependence on seismic moment. The average
value for the area of largest asperity is 13.79% of the total
rupture area versus the 17.5% proposed by Somerville et al.
(2002). Table 4 shows that, for the self-similar scaling equa-
tion provided by Somerville et al. (2002), the error estimate
(se
0:732) is greater than that found by the self-similar
848 A. Ramírez-Gaytán, J. Aguirre, M. A. Jaimes, and V. Huérfano

(a) 100000 10
(b)

Rupture Area (km2)

Average Slip (m)

10000

1
This study
1000 Somerville et al. (2002)
Murotani et al. (2008) This study
Strasser et al. (2010) Somerville et al. (2002)
Blaser et al. (2010) Murotani et al. (2008)
100 0.1

(c) 10000 10000

Combined Area of Asperities (km2)

(d)

Area of Largest Asperity (km2)

1000 1000

This study
Somerville et al. (2002)
Murotani et al. (2008)
100 100

(e) 100 1000

Hypocentral Distance to Center of

Hypocentral Distance to Center of

(f)

Largest Asperities (km)

Closest Asperities (km)

100

10

10

1 1
1×1019 1×1020 1×1021 1×1022
(g) 1000 Seismic Moment (N •m)
Overall Slip Duration (s)

100

10

0.1
1×1019 1×1020 1×1021 1×1022
Seismic Moment (N •m)

Figure 3. Comparison of scaling relations of this study with existing relations. In all cases (a–g) we show the relation between seismic
moments versus the following: (a) rupture area, (b) average slip, (c) combined area of asperities, (d) area of largest asperity, (e) hypocentral
distance to center of closest asperity, (f) hypocentral distance to center of largest asperity, and (g) overall slip duration. In all cases, gray lines
are the results of this study, dotted lines are from Somerville et al. (2002), dashed-dotted lines are from Murotani et al. (2008), and dotted
lines are from Strasser et al. (2010).

scaling equation that estimates the area of largest asperities
of large-magnitude Mexican subduction earthquakes
(se
0:676). The scaling law that relates hypocentral distance
to the center of the closest asperity RA (km) and seismic mo-
ment M 0 (N·m) determined without constraining the slope is
(Fig. 2e)
RA
2:47 × 10−3 M 0:177
0 :
By self-similar scaling of the slope to be 1=3, the relationship is
RA
1:81 × 10−6 M 1=3
0 : 16
Table 4 shows that, for the self-similar scaling equation
provided by Somerville et al. (2002), the error estimate
(se
1:257) is greater than that found by the constrained
equation that estimates the hypocentral distance to the center
of the closest asperity for large-magnitude Mexican subduc-
15 tion earthquakes (se
0:902). This can also be observed in
Figure 2e, in which the dashed lines corresponding to the
Scaling Relationships of Source Parameters of Mw 6.9–8.1 Earthquakes
mean 95% confidence intervals when self-similar scaling
is assumed.
In this study, we compared the new relationships pro-
posed in the present paper with the areas of 31 Mexican sub-
duction earthquakes estimated by Aguirre and Irikura (2007).
One item to note is that these areas are generated by a process
that considered high frequencies, while our relationships that
involve the rupture area, area of largest asperity, and com-
bined area of asperities were determined primarily from
sources that consider low-frequency data. Aguirre and Iri-
kura (2007) used the flat level of acceleration spectra records
for high frequencies from 31 earthquakes recorded by the
Guerrero Mexico accelerographic array from 1985 to
1998. The 31 earthquakes belong to the subduction earth-
quakes (those occurring on the plate interface). From the cor-
ner frequency of the source spectra for the acceleration
records, the authors estimated the corresponding source area
and compare their results with the area of the largest asperity
provided by Somerville et al. (2002). In Figure 4, we show
our results for this comparison.
Relationships between Stress Drop and Depth
Because the stress drop is a phenomenon related to the
level of the seismic-wave radiation, which may vary as a
function of depth, we estimated the average stress drop of
individual asperities. For the seven earthquakes (kinematic
studies) considered here, we estimate the average stress drop
of each one of the 13 asperities within the rupture area, as
well as the small stress drop of the surrounding area. The
static stress drop of each asperity is estimated from equa-
tion (17), following Madariaga (1979), when a circular
source fault can be assumed (Boatwright, 1988).

7 M
Δσ a
× 2 0 ; 17
16 r ×R
in which Δσ a is the static stress drop on asperity in MPa, r is
the equivalent asperity radius in kilometers, R is the equiv-
alent radius of the source faults in kilometers, and M 0 is in
newton meters. The stress drop of the 13 asperities consid-
ered here (Table 5) ranged from 0.504 to 3.284 MPa. There is
not a clear dependency of the stress drop of the asperities
with the depth in our dataset.
Discussion
Comparison with Recent Source-Scaling
Relationships
From analysis of Figure 3a–g, in which the results of this
study are compared with four different source-scaling rela-
tionships for subduction events, it is apparent that our results
involving rupture area (Fig. 3a) show a similar tendency to
those obtained by Strasser et al. (2010), Blaser et al. (2010),
and Murotani et al. (2008) in the sense that they generate
smaller areas than predicted by Somerville et al. (2002).
849
10000
Source area estimated by Aguirre & Irikura (2007)
Rupture area estimated by Somerville et al. (2002)
This study: Rupture area
This study: Area of largest asperity
1000 This study: Combined area of asperities
100
Area (km2)
10
1
0.1
1×1015 1×1016 1×1017 1×1018 1×1019 1×1020 1×1021
Seismic Moment (N •m)
Figure 4. Relationships between seismic moment versus total
rupture area, area of largest asperity, and combined area of asper-
ities. The relationship between seismic moment and total rupture
area generated by Somerville et al. (2002) is represented by the dot-
ted line, the relationship between seismic moment and rupture area
obtained in this study is represented by the continuous line, the re-
lationship between seismic moment and the area of largest asperity
obtained in this study is represented by the dashed-dotted line, the
relationship between seismic moment and combined area of asper-
ities obtained in this study is represented by the dashed line, and the
areas estimated by the corner frequencies of source spectra of ac-
celeration records estimated by Aguirre and Irikura (2007) are rep-
resented by gray circles.
As mentioned in the Results section, for the relationship de-
rived in this study, the error estimate (se
0:587) is smaller
than those relationships compared here, which are 0.630 for
Somerville et al. (2002), 0.684 for Murotani et al. (2008),
0.758 for Strasser et al. (2010), and 1.233 for Blaser et al.
(2010).
The results from this study show a close resemblance to
the relationships proposed by Somerville et al. (2002) and
Murotani et al. (2008). The closest resemblance with Somer-
ville et al. (2002) could be explained because four of the
source models, representing 40% of the data considered in
the regression of Somerville et al. (2002), are derived from
the Mexican subduction zone; those models are considered
in our study and represent 57% of our data. Also, our results
highlight that there is a clear offset of a factor of ∼2 in rup-
ture area between our relationships and those obtained by
Blaser et al. (2010). A similar offset is obtained by Blaser
et al. (2010) when comparing their relationships that involve
rupture area with the result derived by Murotani et al. (2008).
The difference between the results of this study and those
proposed by Blaser et al. (2010) could be due to two factors:
(1) our study focuses only on Mexican events, whereas they
used worldwide data, and (2) the method used in our study to
estimate the rupture areas of the source is based only on slip
distribution, unlike that of Strasser et al. (2010) and Blaser
et al. (2010), who used earthquakes from different tectonic
environments in the world and some rupture areas that are
850
Table 5
Stress Drop of All Asperities from Earthquakes Used in This Study and Depth Measured at the Center
of the Asperity
Event Number Name of Earthquake Date (yyyy/mm/dd)
1 Petatlán 1979/03/14
2 Playa Azul 1981/10/25
3 Michoacán 1985/09/19
4 Zihuatanejo 1985/09/21
5 San Marcos 1989/04/25
6 Manzanillo 1995/10/09
7 Tecomán 2003/01/22
based in the aftershock distribution. As explained by Blaser
et al. (2010), this evaluation could involve subjective
judgment and other sources of uncertainties.
The predicted areas generated by Murotani et al. (2008)
that involve rupture area and combined area of asperities, like
the corresponding relationships generated in this study, show
the same tendency as our results in the sense that they gener-
ated smaller areas than those obtained by Somerville et al.
(2002), as shown in Figure 3a,c. One reason for this behavior
is that both relationships (Murotani et al., 2008; and the results
of this study) are derived from a similar process
(Somerville et al., 1999) to determine the area of asperities
and rupture area, unlike the other relationships compared here
(Blaser et al., 2010; Strasser et al., 2010). Despite the fact that
Murotani et al. (2008) and our results show a similar tendency,
the comparison highlights an important difference, because
our results generated larger areas than those proposed by
Murotani et al. (2008). There is not a clear explanation for
this behavior; however, it is important to note that both rela-
tionships are derived exclusively from specific subduction re-
gions (Japan and Mexico) and that one of the justifications of
these types of studies is to know whether or not this relation-
ship varies depending on a specific subduction tectonic
region. Figure 3b shows that predicted average slip by Mur-
otani et al. (2008) is very similar to our results because both
lines are almost superimposed. Additionally, both lines show
the same tendency in the sense that both generated higher
values than those obtained by Somerville et al. (2002).
Comparison with Somerville et al. (2002)
As shown in Figure 3a–g from the source-scaling rela-
tionships determined in this study, for most source parame-
ters studied here, our results present smaller values than
those obtained by Somerville et al. (2002), with the only ex-
ception being the relationship that involves the average slip
versus seismic moment. The se for each regression, summa-
rized in Table 4, suggests that in general, for all source
parameters studied here, the se from the self-similar scaling
A. Ramírez-Gaytán, J. Aguirre, M. A. Jaimes, and V. Huérfano
Number of Asperity Depth (km) Stress Drop (MPa)
1 11.685 0.558
2 29.830 0.504
1 16.330 3.049
1 15.247 1.577
2 18.610 1.442
1 20.005 3.284
1 16.845 1.066
1 5.080 2.728
2 24.430 2.258
3 13.545 2.159
4 5.079 1.984
1 18.125 2.971
2 29.365 3.046
equation of large-magnitude Mexican subduction earth-
quakes is smaller than the self-similar scaling equation pro-
vided by Somerville et al. (2002). This can also be observed
in Figure 2a–g, with the dashed lines corresponding to the
mean 95% confidence intervals when self-similar scaling
is assumed. This result suggests that the expressions obtained
in this study could be appropriate for simulation of strong
ground motions only in the case of the Mexican subduc-
tion-zone environment, although it is necessary to take into
account that the database used in this study is limited.
Irikura and Miyake (2011) define the rupture area and
seismic moment as outer fault parameters and the slip hetero-
geneities and combined area of asperities as inner fault
parameters. Figure 2a–d show that the scaling laws that in-
volve areas (inner and outer fault parameters) in general
show a greater dependence with respect to seismic moment
than other relationships studied here (Fig. 2b–e). In the case
of average slip, this dependence is less. However, Figure 2b
shows that, with the exception of Petatlán and San Marcos
earthquakes, the average slip of the remaining five earth-
quakes shows a dependence on seismic moment. The basic
difference between constrained and unconstrained relation-
ships that relate the average slip versus seismic moment
(equations 9 and 10; Fig. 2b) comes from the San Marcos
earthquake event (25 April 1989). Interestingly, this event
only shows a different tendency in the slip versus seismic
moment, but not in the other relationships studied here.
Particularly, relationships that relate the combined area of
asperities versus seismic moment (with both constrained
and unconstrained equations; equations 11 and 12) are very
similar. Additionally in this case, the point that represents the
San Marcos event shows the best agreement with both ten-
dency lines (constrained and unconstrained). What can pro-
duce this behavior? Let us examine this in detail: (1) This
event is the only one that has not been taken from Martin
Mai’s SRCMOD Database of Finite-Source Rupture Models
(see Data and Resources). (2) In contrast to the other kinematic
inversions used in this study that mainly use teleseismic data,
Scaling Relationships of Source Parameters of Mw 6.9–8.1 Earthquakes
this event has been inverted using only strong ground motion
data (see Table 2). (3) The published article that studied the
rupture process of the San Marcos earthquake (Singh et al.,
1989) reports only the slip distribution with arrows of different
sizes corresponding to the displacement in each subfault. Be-
cause the discretization slip values were obtained from mea-
surements of the slip lines from the printed figures, this
could produce some uncertainties in our slip distribution data.
However, from Figure 2c, it is interesting to observe that the
self-similarity assumption is almost the same as the uncon-
strained relation. One point that contributes to this behavior
is the well-confined area of asperities from the San Marcos
event. That means that even the absolute values of displace-
ment assigned to each subfault could be inaccurate; the contrast
between them allows us to determine the combined area of
asperities appropriately.
The scaling laws of seismic moment M0 versus total
area of rupture and average slip, Figure 2a and 2b, respec-
tively, hold a relationship in the sense that the concept of the
fault rupture area reveals the zone of the fault that radiates
seismic energy, and this necessarily implies that this relation-
ship has a direct implication with average slip. Our results
show that only the case of the average slip relationship ob-
tained in this study (Fig. 2b) is larger than the relationship
proposed by Somerville et al. (2002). The relationship be-
tween seismic moment versus total rupture area and seismic
moment versus average slip for large-magnitude Mexican
subduction zone earthquakes (Figs. 2a and 2b) might con-
tribute to the explanation of small rupture areas obtained by
Aguirre (2005), Garduño (2006), and Ramírez-Gaytán et al.
(2010). If seismic moment is the result of the product of area,
average slip, and rock shear modulus, then a decrease in the
area of seismic source and combined area of asperities im-
plies a necessary increase of average slip in order to maintain
a similar seismic moment.
In this study, the area covered by asperities is 19.4% of
the total rupture area, which is smaller than the 25% pro-
posed by Somerville et al. (2002). The average value for
the area of the largest asperity is 13.79% of the total rupture
area, which is smaller than the 17.5% proposed by Somer-
ville et al. (2002). Both results are congruent with the two
relationships described above in the sense that a reduction in
area implies a larger slip in order to maintain a similar seis-
mic moment. Additionally, the comparison of the combined
area of asperities versus area of largest asperity suggests that
the largest asperity is responsible for releasing a large
amount of energy during an earthquake.
By comparing both constrained equations (see Fig. 2e)
of the estimated hypocentral distance with the closest asper-
ity of large-magnitude Mexican subduction earthquakes, we
observe that it is 50.23% smaller than the self-similar scaling
equation provided by Somerville et al. (2002). During the
process of simulating strong ground motions, we found that
the location of an asperity, inside of a seismic source at large
distance from the hypocenter, in most cases generates a poor
fitting between the synthetic and the observed motions
851
(Ramírez-Gaytán et al., 2010). This fitting slowly improves
when an asperity approaches the hypocenter. In this case, the
location of the nearest asperity to the hypocenter is an im-
portant factor when dealing with strong ground motion sim-
ulations. In this study, our result is 50.23% smaller than that
proposed by Somerville et al. (2002) and in this particular
case may have a direct implication of bringing the asperity
closer to the hypocenter. This suggests that the nucleation
process of some earthquakes probably starts at the location
of an asperity.
Comparison with Mexican Subduction Earthquakes
(High Frequencies)
Aguirre and Irikura (2007) conducted a study to estimate
the rupture areas of 31 earthquakes from the Mexican sub-
duction zone. The process considers the corner frequencies
of source spectra of acceleration records. In their study, they
plot the source areas obtained with the process described
above and note that these areas fit well with the relationship
proposed by Somerville et al. (2002) between the seismic
moment and the area of the largest asperity for subduction
earthquakes. They conclude that the estimated areas were
not the total rupture areas of earthquake. In Figure 4, we plot
the same areas estimated by Aguirre and Irikura (2007) for
the 31 Mexican subduction-zone earthquakes, but now com-
pared with the results of the present study (rupture area, com-
bined area of asperities, area of largest asperities) and with
the rupture area determined by Somerville et al. (2002).
The relationships between seismic moment and rupture
area determined by Somerville et al. (2002) in Figure 4 are
represented with a dotted line, and the same relationship ob-
tained from the Mexican subduction earthquakes obtained in
this study is represented with a solid line (equation 8). In
both cases, relationships lie considerably above the estimated
areas of 31 earthquakes, confirming the conclusion obtained
by Aguirre and Irikura (2007) that the areas estimated for 31
earthquakes did not correspond to the total rupture areas.
This could be explained because areas of high-frequency ra-
diation mainly correspond to regions adjacent to the large
slip velocity area (Miyake et al., 2003). This means that the
determined source area of these 31 earthquakes mainly re-
flects the area of asperities. Then, while using the rectangular
representation of the fault rupture from kinematic inversions
and source-scaling relationships, the asperities represent only
a fraction of the rupture area (asperities represent 22% of the
source area in the case of Somerville et al. [1999]). The
remaining 78% of the source area considered in this source-
scaling relationship is not reflected by the source areas esti-
mated using acceleration spectra.
The dashed-dotted line (equation 14) in Figure 4 repre-
sents the relationship of seismic moment versus area of largest
asperity. This line gives a best-fit and is located inside a cloud
of gray circles that represents the estimated areas of 31
earthquakes. However, 60% of these circles are located above
the line. As mentioned previously, this can be explained
852
because the circles that represent the source areas of 31
earthquakes primarily reflect the area of asperities, meaning
the total area of asperities. On the contrary, the trend line
(dashed-dotted line) given here represents only the area of
the largest asperity. This relationship excludes the area of
small asperities that contributes to the generation of high
frequencies. This could be the reason why the trend line
(dashed-dotted line) is located slightly below the center of the
clustered circles. The dashed line (equation 12) of Figure 4
represents the relationships of seismic moment versus com-
bined area of asperities located near the center of the clustered
circles, showing the best-fit of the four relationships com-
pared here. As mentioned, this may explain why the circles
representing the source areas of 31 earthquakes reflect the to-
tal area of asperities estimated through a process that consid-
ers high frequencies, and the trend line determined here in fact
represents the combined area of asperities generated through a
process that considers low frequencies.
This result is in accordance with that stated by Irikura
and Miyake (2011) in the sense that the flat level of the ac-
celeration spectra was theoretically related to the combined
asperity areas. Based on these considerations, an important
implication is that two different methodologies to determine
the source area provide similar results. Namely, these meth-
odologies are (1) the source-scaling relationship to determine
the combined area of asperities from kinematic inversions
(based on low frequencies) and (2) the area of combined
asperities estimated by the corner frequencies (based on high
frequencies).
Stress Drop
Strong dependence of stress drop when depth increases
may indicate that the asperity areas could take smaller values
than predicted by scaling relationships; that is, when the
areas are located at larger depths within the rupture area.
We calculate the stress drop of the 13 asperities considered
here and found that they ranged from 0.504 to 3.284 MPa
(Table 5). There is not a clear dependence of the stress drop
of those asperities with the depth in our dataset. Scholz
(1982, 2002) stated that shear strength of the lithosphere in-
creases with depth. So, we expected that the deeper asperities
could have associated a larger stress drop. However, the data-
set used here, shows a null dependence of stress drop with
the depth. Moya et al. (2000) estimated the stress drop for the
aftershocks of the Kobe earthquake and compared the stress
drop with depth; their results show a similar trend with the
one obtained in this study, that is, although a slight indication
of dependency can be recognized, in general the dependence
of stress drop with depth is very scattered.
Conclusions
We obtain source-scaling relationships for Mexican sub-
duction events. These relations were compared with those
proposed by four different authors for subduction environ-
A. Ramírez-Gaytán, J. Aguirre, M. A. Jaimes, and V. Huérfano
ments. Concerning the relationships for the rupture area,
our results are closer to those of Somerville et al. (2002) than
any other, but, like the others, they have smaller areas than
predicted by Somerville et al. (2002). This resemblance
could be because 40% of the source data models considered
in Somerville et al. (2002) are derived from the Mexican sub-
duction zone and represent 57% of our data. In contrast, one
of the reasons for the difference with those relationships, pro-
posed by Strasser et al. (2010) and Blaser et al. (2010), could
be because our study focuses only on Mexican events,
whereas they use worldwide data. Another reason could be
because, for some earthquakes, the criteria to estimate the
rupture area used in their studies are based on the aftershock
distribution. That is different than our study, which is based
only on slip distribution. The criteria based on aftershock
distribution could involve subjective judgment and other
sources of uncertainties (Blasser et al., 2010).
Because rupture areas from Murotani et al. (2008) are
derived from the same process applied in the present study
(Somerville et al., 1999), their relationship also predicts
larger values than Strasser et al. (2010) and Blaser et al.
(2010), but smaller values than ours. There is not a clear ex-
planation for this behavior; however, it is important to note
that both relationships are derived exclusively from specific
subduction regions (Japan and Mexico) and that one justifi-
cation of this type of study is to know whether or not this
relationship varies depending on a specific region.
Concerning the combined area of asperities, both Mur-
otani et al. (2008) and our results predict smaller areas than
those obtained by Somerville et al. (2002). However, both
relationships highlight an important difference, because
our results generated larger areas than those proposed by
Murotani et al. (2008), which, as mentioned could be related
to the specific subduction regions (Japan and Mexico).
Concerning the area of largest asperity, the relationships
obtained in this study are slightly smaller than those de-
scribed by Somerville et al. (2002), which is consistent with
the relationships of total rupture area and combined area of
asperities. This is important because they are involved in the
source models used for strong ground motion simulation. In
the case of the average slip, our relationship is slightly larger
than Somerville et al. (2002). That is an expected result be-
cause a decrease in the area of the seismic source implies an
increase of average slip in order to maintain the same seismic
moment.
The error estimates for the constrained equations derived
in this study in all cases are smaller than those relationships
compared here. This might suggest that the expressions ob-
tained in this study could be appropriate for the simulations
of strong ground motion for the specific scenario of earth-
quake slip on the Mexican subduction-zone megathrust be-
tween the Cocos–Rivera and the North American plates. An
important implication of this result is that the source-scaling
relationships vary depending on specific regions. However,
the improvement of these relationships requires more infor-
mation to become available.
Scaling Relationships of Source Parameters of Mw 6.9–8.1 Earthquakes
For the case of relationships that involve the seismic mo-
ment versus combined area of asperities, the small difference
between the results obtained by Somerville et al. (2002) and
the result obtained in this study could only partially explain
the result obtained by Aguirre (2005), Garduño (2006), and
Ramírez-Gaytán et al. (2010).
From the comparison between the source areas of 31
Mexican earthquakes estimated by Aguirre and Irikura
(2007) and the relationships generated in this study, the fol-
lowing are observed. (1) The relationships between seismic
moment and rupture area determined by Somerville et al.
(2002) and the same relationship from Mexican subduction
earthquakes obtained in this study lie considerably above the
estimated areas of 31 earthquakes, confirming the conclusion
obtained by Aguirre and Irikura (2007) in the sense that the
areas estimated for 31 earthquakes were not corresponding to
the total rupture areas. (2) The relationships of seismic mo-
ment versus combined area of asperities generated in this
study located near the center of the clustered circles obtained
by Aguirre and Irikura (2007) shows the best-fit of the four
relationships compared here. This result is in accordance
with what is stated by Irikura and Miyake (2011) in the sense
that acceleration level was theoretically related to the com-
bined asperity areas. Based on these results, an important
implication is that two different methodologies to determine
the total area of asperities show similar results. To reiterate,
these methods are (1) the source-scaling relationship from
kinematic inversions to determine the combined area of
asperities (based on low-frequency data) and (2) the area of
Mexican earthquakes estimated by corner frequencies (based
on high-frequency data). Finally, the stress drop of asperities
from our dataset does not show a clear dependence with
the depth.
Although the seven slip models considered in this study
are the only available studies for the Mexican subduction
zone at this time, in the future it will be important to incor-
porate new slip models in the simulation of strong ground
motions. A strong dependence of stress drop on increasing
depth could imply that the asperity areas could take smaller
values than predicted by scaling relationships; that is, when
the areas are located at larger depths within the rupture area.
The relationships between the stress drop and the depth of
the asperity could then be used in the prediction of strong-
motion scenarios of future large magnitude earthquakes oc-
curring in the Mexican subduction zone.
The slip models considered in this study are the only
available studies for the Mexican subduction zone at this
time. In the near future, incorporation of new slip models in
the simulation of strong ground motions will be an important
contribution. Also, a future task will be to determine how the
relationships vary for specific regions. Further work in de-
veloping these scaling relationships will make it possible to
more accurately predict and simulate strong ground motions
produced by large-magnitude earthquakes from specific
seismogenic zones in close proximity to highly populated
urban areas.
853
Data and Resources
The slip models and slip distribution from the earth-
quakes used in this study are available from the SRCMOD
—Database of Finite-Source Rupture Models (http://equake
‑rc.info/SRCMOD/searchmodels/allevents/; last accessed 30
July 2013). The Global Centroid Moment Tensor (CMT)
project catalog (1976–2013) is available at www.globalcmt.
org (last accessed 13 March 2010). The seven published slip
models of earthquakes used in this study are listed in the refer-
ences. The ten published slip models of earthquakes used for
Somerville et al. (2002) are listed in the references. Maps were
created using ArcGIS version 9.3. Graphics and plots were
created using MATLAB version 7.0.
Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank Kojiro Irikura and one anonymous reviewer
whose comments helped to significantly improve the original manuscript.
We thank Associate Editor Heather DeShon for her important comments that
have led to significant improvements to this manuscript. This study was con-
siderably facilitated by the SRCMOD database compiled by Martin Mai and
coworkers, who provided the finite fault-slip models from the Finite-Source
Rupture Model Database, and by the willingness of Carlos Mendoza, the
principal author of the models used in this study. We are grateful to Ramón
Zúñiga of the Instituto de Geociencias of the Universidad Nacional Autón-
oma de México for providing additional data and Evan Hirakawa of Uni-
versity of California in San Diego/San Diego State University for
valuable comments and review. This research was supported by the Consejo
Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACyT) under Grant Number
164501.
References
Aguirre, J. (2005). Escenarios sísmicos a través de la caracterización de las
fuentes sísmicas en México, Mem. XV Congreso Nacional de Ingen-
iería Sísmica, Sociedad Mexicana de Ingeniería Sismica (Editor),
México D.F. (available only in CD).
Aguirre, J., and K. Irikura (2007). Source characterization of Mexican
subduction earthquakes from acceleration source spectra for the
prediction of strong ground motions, Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 97,
1960–1969.
Asano, K., and T. Iwata (2011). Characterization of stress drops on asperities
estimated from the heterogeneous kinematic slip model for strong
motion prediction for inland crustal earthquakes in Japan, Pure Appl.
Geophys. 168, 105–116.
Blaser, L., F. Krüger, M. Ohrnberger, and F. Scherbaum (2010). Scaling re-
lations of earthquake source parameter estimates with special focus on
subduction environment, Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 100, 2914–2926.
Boatwright, J. (1988). The seismic radiation from composite model of
faulting, Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 78, 489–598.
Castro, R., and E. Ruiz-Cruz (2005). Stochastic modeling of the September
1999 Mw 7.5 earthquake, Oaxaca, Mexico, Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 96,
2259–2271.
Garduño, N. (2006). Procesos de la fuente del sismo del 15 de Julio de 1996
usando el método de la función de Green empírica y algoritmos
genéticos, Bachelor’s Thesis, Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad
Nacional Autónoma de México, 11 pp. (in Spanish).
Hanks, T., and H. Kanamori (1979). Moment magnitude scale, J. Geophys.
Res. 84, 2348–2350.
Hartzell, S. H., and C. Langer (1993). Importance of model parameterization
in finite-fault inversions: Application to the 1974 Mw 8.0 Peru
earthquake, J. Geophys. Res. 98, 22,123–22,134.
854
Ichinose, G. A., H. K. Thio, P. G. Somerville, T. Sato, and T. Ishii (2003).
Rupture process of the 1944 Tonankai earthquake (M s 8.1) from the
inversion of telesieismic and regional seismograms, J. Geophys. Res.
108, 13-1–13-21.
Irikura, K. (1986). Prediction of strong accelerations motions using empiri-
cal Green’s function, 7th Japan Earthq. Eng. Symp., 10 December
1986, 151–156.
Irikura, K., and H. Miyake (2011). Recipe for predicting strong ground
motion from crustal earthquake scenarios, Pure Appl. Geophys.
168, 85–104.
Kanamori, H., and D. L. Anderson (1975). Theoretical basis of some em-
pirical relations in seismology, Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 65, 1073–1095.
Lavallée, D., and R. J. Archuleta (2003). Stochastic modeling of slip spatial
complexities for the 1979 Imperial Valley, California, earthquake,
Geophys. Res. Lett. 30, no. 5, 1245, doi: 10.1029/2002GL015839.
Lay, T., and T. C. Wallace (1995). Modern Global Seismology, Academic
Press, San Diego, California, 521 pp.
Madariaga, R. (1979). On the relation between seismic moment and stress
drop in the presence of stress and strength heterogeneity, J. Geophys.
Res. 84, 2243–2250.
Mai, P. M., and G. C. Beroza (2000). Source scaling properties from finite-
fault-rupture models, Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 90, 604–615.
Mai, P. M., and G. C. Beroza (2002). A spatial random field model to char-
acterize complexity in earthquake slip, J. Geophys. Res. 107, no. B11,
2308, doi: 10.1029/2001JB000588.
Mendoza, C. (1993). Coseismic slip of two large-magnitude Mexican earth-
quakes from teleseismic body waveforms: Implications for asperity
interaction in the Michoacán plate boundary segment, J. Geophys.
Res. 98, 8197–8210.
Mendoza, C. (1995). Finite fault analysis of the 1979 March 14, Petatlán,
Mexico earthquake using teleseismic P waveforms, Geophys. J. Int.
121, 675–683.
Mendoza, C., and E. Fukuyama (1996). Hokkaido-Nansei-Oki, Japan,
earthquake: Coseismic slip pattern from strong motion and teleseismic
recordings, J. Geophys. Res 101, 791–801.
Mendoza, C., and S. H. Hartzell (1989). Slip distribution of the 19 Septem-
ber 1985 Michoacán, Mexico earthquake: Near-source and teleseismic
constrains, Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 79, 655–669.
Mendoza, C., and S. H. Hartzell (1999). Fault slip distribution of the 1995
Colima-Jalisco, Mexico, Earthquake, Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 89,
1338–1344.
Mendoza, C., S. H. Hartzell, and T. Monfret (1994). Wide-band analysis of
the 3 March 1985 central Chile earthquake: Overall source process and
rupture history, Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 84, 269–283.
Miyake, H., T. Iwata, and K. Irikura (2003). Source characterization for
broadband ground-motion simulation: Kinematic heterogeneous
source model and strong motion generation area, Bull. Seismol.
Soc. Am. 93, 2531–2545.
Miyake, H., T. Iwata, and K. Irikura (2004). Controlling factors of strong
ground motion prediction for scenario earthquakes, 13th World
Conference on Earthquake Engineering, Vancouver B.C., Canada,
Paper Number 2801, 10 pp.
Moya, A., J. Aguirre, and K. Irikura (2000). Inversion of source parameters
and site effects from strong ground motion records using genetic
algorithms, Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 90, no. 4, 977–992.
Murotani, S., H. Miyake, and K. Koketsu (2008). Scaling of characterized
slip models for plate-boundary earthquakes, Earth Planets Space 60,
987–991.
Ramírez-Gaytán, A., J. Aguirre, and C. Huerta (2010). Tecomán earthquake:
Physical implications of seismic source modeling, applying the
empirical Green’s function method, and evidence of non-linear behav-
ior of ground, ISET J. Earthq. Technol. 47, no. 1, 1–23.
A. Ramírez-Gaytán, J. Aguirre, M. A. Jaimes, and V. Huérfano
Santoyo, M. A., S. K. Singh, and T. Mikumo (2005). Source process and
stress change associated with the 11 January, 1997 (M w 7.1)
Michoacán, Mexico, inslab earthquake, Geofis. Int. 44, 317–330.
Scholz, C. H. (1982). Scaling laws for large earthquakes: Consequences for
physical models, Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 72, 1–14.
Scholz, C. H. (2002). The Mechanics of Earthquakes and Faulting, Second
Ed., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom,
463 pp.
Singh, S. K., M. Ordaz, R. Quaas, and E. Mena (1989). Estudio preliminar
de la fuente del temblor del 25 de abril de 1989 (Ms
6:9) a partir de
movimientos fuertes, Memorias del VIII Congreso Nacional de Ingen-
iería Sísmica, Acapulco, Vol. I, A-199–A-205.
Somerville, P., N. Collins, T. Sato, T. Ishii, K. Dan, and H. Fujiwara (2002).
Characterizing heterogeneous slip models for large subduction earth-
quakes for strong ground motion prediction, in Proc. of the 11th Symp.
of Earthq. Eng., Vol. 1, 163–166 (in Japanese).
Somerville, P., K. Irikura, R. Graves, S. Sawada, D. Wald, N. Abrahamson,
Y. Iwasaki, T. Kagawa, N. Smith, and A. Kowada (1999). Character-
izing crustal earthquake slip models for the prediction of strong ground
motion, Seismol. Res. Lett. 70, 59–80.
Strasser, F. O., M. C. Arango, and J. J. Bommer (2010). Scaling of the source
dimensions of interface and intraslab subduction-zone earthquakes
with moment magnitude, Seismol. Res. Lett. 81, 941–950.
Wald, D. J., and P. Somerville (1995). Variable-slip rupture model of the
Great 1923 Kanto, Japan, earthquake: Geodetic and body-waveform
analysis, Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 85, 156–177.
Wells, D. L., and K. J. Coppersmith (1994). New empirical relationships
among magnitude, rupture length, rupture width, rupture area,
and surface displacement, Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 84, 974–1002.
Yagi, Y., T. Mikumo, J. Pacheco, and G. Reyes (2004). Source rupture
process of Tecomán, Colima, México earthquake of 22 January,
2003, determined by joint inversion of teleseismic body-wave and
near-source data, Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 94, 1795–1807.
Departamento de Ciencias Computaciónales
Centro Universitario de Ciencias Exactas e Ingeniería (CUCEI) de la
Universidad de Guadalajara
Boulevard Marcelino García Barragán # 1421
CP. 44430, Guadalajara, Jalisco, México
l7m8s3r@gmail.com
(A.R.-G.)
Instituto de Ingeniería
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
Ciudad Universitaria
Coyoacán 04510, México DF, México
joagg@pumas.iingen.unam.mx
mjaimest@iingen.unam.mx
(J.A., M.A.J.)
Puerto Rico Seismic Network
Department of Geology
University of Puerto Rico
Residencie 2ª Mayagüez R. 9000, 00680
Victor@prsn.uprm.edu
(V.H.)
Manuscript received 9 February 2013;
Published Online 25 March 2014