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Duration of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake ground motions

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Abstract

We compared several different duration measures for the 2011 M9.0 Tohoku earthquake sequence, because empirical duration models are of great interest for purposes of correlation with structural damage, and the Tohoku mainshock was remarkable for its long duration. Among the three considered definitions, RMS duration (McCann and Shah, Bull Seism Soc Am 69: 1253–1265, 1979) is best able to predict the duration within which pulses or groups of pulses of energy arrive; it is particularly suitable for the Tohoku mainshock, for which source complexity caused time-series with multiple-phase arrivals. Two other considered definitions, both of which tend to underestimate the observed duration, are: (i) duration defined by random vibration theory (RVT); and (ii) the significant duration as defined by the interval between 5 and 75 % or 95 % of the integral of the square of the ground acceleration (known as “Arias intensity” (Arias 1970)) or velocity (known as “energy integral” (Anderson 2004)). In the Tohoku mainshock, significant amplitudes precede the 5 % of the Arias intensity marker; we need to use 0.3 % of the maximum of the accumulated energy as the lower bound marker to appropriately estimate the duration using the significant duration definition. The RVT duration (used in stochastic simulations) can be estimated easily from the 5–75 % of the Arias intensity (significant duration) definition as the two measures give very similar durations. Overall, the significant duration of ground motions observed during the 2011 M9.0 Tohoku earthquake increases with distance as 0.19R cd for the horizontal components or 0.33R cd for the vertical component, where R cd is the closest distance to the fault plane. By comparison, the duration of four aftershocks (M4.5–7.7) increases with distance as ~0.10R hypo where R hypo is the hypocentral distance. For the mainshock, the distance-dependent slope term is greater, presumably due to the large fault plane size.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Julian Bommer for his insightful comments that helped improve the manuscript. Ground-motion data and site information for this study were obtained from the KiK-net and K-net networks. This study was funded by the National Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth Sciences, University of Western Ontario, 1151 Richmond Street, London, Ontario, Canada, N6A 5B7

    Hadi Ghofrani & Gail M. Atkinson

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  1. Hadi Ghofrani
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  2. Gail M. Atkinson
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Correspondence to Hadi Ghofrani.

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Data and Resources

The strong-motion records obtained by the Kyoshin network (“K-net”) and KIBAN kyoshin network (“KiK-net”) are now both reported at: http://www.kik.bosai.go.jp/ (last accessed March 2014). The focal mechanism information for the aftershocks is gathered from the Fundamental Research on Earthquakes and Earth's Interior Anomaly (F-NET: http://www.fnet.bosai.go.jp/, last accessed March 2014). The fault plane parameters of the Tohoku earthquake obtained from the GPS Earth Observation Network System (GEONET) data analysis (http://www.gsi.go.jp/, last accessed March 2014). All figures were prepared using the graphics software package CoPlot (www.cohort.com, last accessed March 2014).

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Ghofrani, H., Atkinson, G.M. Duration of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake ground motions. J Seismol 19, 9–25 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10950-014-9447-y

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