Attenuation characteristics of ground motions in northern China

Four recently developed attenuation models are calibrated by using a very limited amount of strong motion data recorded in China. The research shows that the attenuation characteristics of the earthquake shaking in northern China are similar to those in the western US. The supporting evidence includes Q factors, preliminary results of kappa values, stress drop, shear wave velocity profile in the shallow earth crust, areas enclosed by the isoseismals of Modified Mercalli Intensity V. From these comparisons of different attenuation models, it is recommended that the Crouse and McGuire spectral attenuation model could possibly be used for northern China. Funded by: The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and partly supported by NSFC (Grant No.59678048)