Ricardo Taborda

Three-dimensional simulations of earthquakes have given a deeper understanding of wave propagation and site effects in urban regions. Following on this interest, we study the impact of a potential major earthquake of significant seismic hazard on the San Andreas Fault. We present results for the Terashake 1.3 simulation —a rupture beginning near Bombay Beach, California heading 200 km north-west that produces a magnitude 7.7 earthquake in a geographical region which includes all major populated areas of Southern California and northern Mexico in a volume of 600 km long by 300 km width and 80 km depth for up to 0.5 Hz and as low as Vs = 500 m/s— using SCEC 3D velocity model, as part of a verification exercise with the results computed by Olsen et al. (2006) for the same scenario earthquake at the San Diego Supercomputing Center. The present simulation was performed at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center using Hercules, a finite element octree-based, parallel tool-chain developed by the Quake Group at Carnegie Mellon University, which implements an innovative and highly efficient end-to-end approach to solve the wave field in highly heterogeneous basins due to kinematic faulting. Synthetic ground motion throughout the seismic region is analyzed through maps of free-surface global behavior as well as detailed time seismograms at a number of individual locations.