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Peak ground acceleration in Nevada

Conference · · Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs; (United States)
OSTI ID:5423401
 [1]; ;  [2];  [3]
  1. Univ. of Nevada, Reno, NV (United States). Seismological Lab.
  2. Univ. of Nevada, Reno, NV (United States). Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology
  3. Univ. of Nevada, Reno, NV (United States). Dept. of Civil Engineering

Quaternary faults and historical seismicity are used to estimate the deterministic and probabilistic seismic hazard of Nevada. Historical seismicity is used to constrain the occurrence of earthquakes from the lowest magnitude considered, magnitude 5, to magnitude 6.5. Quaternary faults are used to estimate earthquake occurrence for magnitude 6.6 and greater. The program SEISRISK 3 is used to calculate the potential ground motion for an array of points across Nevada. Because the data constraining ground motion attenuation are few in Nevada, an existing attenuation relation presented by Idriss (1985) is used. Ground motion is represented by maximum peak horizontal acceleration, expressed as a percentage of gravity (1 g). The results of these analyses show a large dichotomy between the deterministic and probabilistic studies, which are mostly influenced by the faults and the historical earthquakes, respectively. Recurrence intervals of earthquakes along individual faults appear to be on the order of a few thousand to tens of thousands of years and have a very small contribution to probabilistic studies that consider time periods of 100 years or less. The deterministic study using maximum credible earthquakes gives a range of horizontal acceleration from 0.2 to 0.7 g and a fairly high hazard across the State. The probabilistic study, with a 10% probability of exceedence during a 50 year time period gives accelerations from 0.1 to 0.3 g and the hazard mimics the historical activity, with the highest hazard in western Nevada.

OSTI ID:
5423401
Report Number(s):
CONF-9305259--
Journal Information:
Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs; (United States), Journal Name: Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs; (United States) Vol. 25:5; ISSN GAAPBC; ISSN 0016-7592
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English