Near source ground motions and their variability derived from dynamic rupture simulations constrained by NGA-West2 GMPEs

International audienceEmpirical ground-motion prediction equations (GMPEs) lack a sufficient number of measurements at near-source distances. Seismologists strive to supplement the missing empirical data by physics-based strong ground-motion modeling. Here we build a database of ~3000 dynamic rupture scenarios assuming a vertical strike-slip fault of 36x20 km embedded in a 1D layered elastic medium and linear slip-weakening friction with heterogeneous parameters along the fault. The database is built by a Monte Carlo procedure to follow median and variability of NGA-West2 GMPEs by Boore et al. (2014) at Joyner-Boore distances 10-80 km. The synthetic events span a magnitude range of 5.8-6.8 and have static stress drops between 5 and 40 MPa. These events are used to simulate ground motions at near-source stations within 10 km from the fault. At the near stations, the synthetics exhibit saturation with distance and an increase in variability. In the synthetic database, the within-event and between-event variability are extracted for the near and distant stations employing a mixed-effect model. The within-event variability is lower than its empirical value, only weakly dependent on period, and generally larger for the near stations than for the distant ones. The between-event variability is by 1/4 lower than its empirical value at periods >1s. We show that this can be reconciled by considering epistemic error in Mw when determining GMPEs, which is not present in the synthetic data