Earthquake Engineering

Lecture 4

Sasanka Borah, PhD

1 Civil Engineering Department, Assam Engineering College
 Determination of Hypocenter or
Earthquake Focus
 Seismologists use the elapsed time between the arrival of a P-waves and S-
waves at a given site to assist them in estimating the distance from the site to
the center of energy release. The distance of focus from the observation station
is determined by the relative arrival times of the P and S waves. The distance
from hypocenter to observation point is given by

Where,
T=difference in time of arrival of P and S waves at an observation point;
S=distance from hypocenter to observation point;
Vp and Vs are the velocity of P and S waves, respectively.

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 Where,
T=difference in time of arrival of P and S
waves at an observation point;
S=distance from hypocenter to observation
point;
Vp and Vs are the velocity of P and S waves,
respectively.

Condition: Recordings at
3 three stations minimum
 NUMERICAL
 At a recording station a difference in time of arrival between P waves and S
waves was observed to be 1.5 seconds. What is the approximate distance
from the station at which the event occurred? Assume P wave velocity as 4
km/sec and S wave velocity as 2 km/sec.

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 NUMERICAL
 At a recording station a difference in time of arrival between P waves and S
waves was observed to be 1.5 seconds. What is the approximate distance
from the station at which the event occurred? Assume P wave velocity as 4
km/sec and S wave velocity as 2 km/sec.

Solution:
Given
Vp = 4000m/sec, Vs = 2000m/sec
T = 1.5 sec
Distance = 1.5 / { (1/2000) – (1/4000) }
= 6000m = 6km

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 MEASURING AN EARTHQUAKE

 Magnitude
 Intensity

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 Relationships
With Peak Ground Velocity

Vg is the peak ground velocity in cm/sec

by Wald et.al, (1999) based on Californian

earthquake database
With Peak Ground Acceleration

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 Richter Magnitude, ML
Proposed by Charles Francis Richter in 1979
based on the data from Californian earthquakes, defined the earthquake
magnitude as the logarithm to the base 10 of the largest displacement of a
standard seismograph (called Wood-Anderson Seismograph with properties
T=0.8 sec; m=2800; and damping nearly critical ≈0.8) situated 100 km from the
focus.
For instrument located at an epicentral distance of 100 km

A = the amplitude in micron (10-6m) recorded by; and

M = the magnitude of the earthquake
For instrument located at an epicentral distance of other than 100 km a correction is
introduced to the equation

M = the magnitude of the earthquake;

Δ =distance from epicenter (km),
MΔ= magnitude of the earthquake calculated for earthquake using the values
8 measured at a distance Δ from the epicenter.
 Moment magnitude, Mw
Over the years, scientists observed that different magnitude scales had
saturation points and the magnitudes estimated by different approaches did not
point to a unique value of earthquake size The Richter magnitude saturates at
about 6.8, and the surface wave magnitude at about 7.8. In addition, these magnitude
estimates did not have a linear relation with the energy released due to
earthquake rupture. To address these short falls, Hanks and Kanamori, in 1979
proposed a magnitude scale, termed as ‘moment magnitude’, based on the
seismic moment due to earthquake rupture. The moment magnitude is given by

 Proposed by Hanks and Kanamori (1979) based on the

seismic moment due to earthquake rupture

Where, Mw is the moment magnitude, M0 is the seismic moment in N-m

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 NUMERICAL
 During an earthquake the maximum amplitude recorded at a site
by WoodAnderson Seismograph is 20 cm. The maximum ground
velocity recorded was 25 cm/sec. The site was found to be 75 km
away from the epicenter. Determine the Magnitude and Intensity of
the occurred earthquake.

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 NUMERICAL
 During an earthquake the maximum amplitude recorded at a site
by WoodAnderson Seismograph is 20 cm. The maximum ground
velocity recorded was 25 cm/sec. The site was found to be 75 km
away from the epicenter. Determine the Magnitude and Intensity of
the occurred earthquake.

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 SOLVE:
Estimate the moment magnitude of an event with rupture
length of 100 km, rupture width of 45km and slip of average
fault slip of 3m. Take modulus of rigidity, mu as 3.5 x 10 10N/m2

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 where E is measured in joules.
Thus the ratio of energies released by two earthquakes differing by 1
is magnitude is equal to 31.6.
The ratio is 1000 for earthquakes differing by 2 in magnitude,

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 Next Class

 Magnitude Numericals
 Earthquake Energy
 Earthquake Energy Numericals
 Comparison of Magnitude and Intensity

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