Modeling of the ground motion for the Petropavlovsk earthquake of November 24, 1971 (M = 7.6)

Based on the example of the strong earthquake of November 24, 1971, with the earthquake source near the Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskii, the new modeling technique of the strong ground motions within the broadband is tested. In this technique, the seismologically-substantiated models of the radiation source and elastic medium are used. The source is represented by an array of point radiation sources-dislocations with the random seismic moments (amplitudes) and with the random time functions. The new method of calculation of the Green functions is developed to describe the propagation of waves and residual displacements of a layered medium. The method is used for the simulation of the horizontal ground motion, recorded by a S5S-ISO instrument for the strong earthquake that took place on November 24, 1971 with the source near the Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskii (with a depth of 105 km). The position of the hypocenter, the sizes and the position of the fault, and “fault mechanism” were considered to be known a priori. By a trial and error method of the duration of the source process and only two spectral parameters, it was possible to simulate successfully the fundamental characteristics of the ground vibrations: the amplitude of acceleration, the velocity and displacement of the ground, their Fourier spectrum, the duration of the vibrations, and the response spectrum. The surprisingly high level of high-frequency radiation, probably connected with the intraplate position of the source, is a specific feature of the source.