Multicomponent Body and Surface Wave Seismic Analysis using an Urban Land Streamer System: An Integrative Earthquake Hazards Assessment Approach

Abstract:

We present earthquake site response results from a 48-channel multicomponent seismic land streamer and large weight drop system. We acquired data along a grid of city streets in western Idaho at a rate of a few km per day where we derived shear wave velocity profiles to a depth of 40-50 m by incorporating vertical and radial geophone signals to capture the complete elliptical Rayleigh wave motion. We also obtained robust p-wave reflection and refraction results by capturing the returned signals that arrive at non-vertical incidence angles that result from the high-velocity road surface layer. By integrating the derived shear wave velocity profiles with p-wave reflection results, we include depositional and tectonic boundaries from the upper few hundred meters into our analysis to help assess whether ground motions may be amplified by shallow bedrock. By including p-wave refraction information into the analysis, we can identify zones of high liquefaction potential by comparing shear wave and p-wave velocity (Vp/Vs) measurements relative to refraction-derived water table depths. The utilization of multicomponent land streamer data improves signal-noise levels over single component data with no additional field effort. The added multicomponent data processing step can be as simple as calculating the magnitude of the vector for surface wave and refraction arrivals or rotating the reflected signals to the maximum emergence angle based on near surface p-wave velocity information. We show example data from a number of Idaho communities where historical earthquakes have been recorded. We also present numerical models and systematic field tests that show the effects of a high velocity road surface layer in surface and body wave measurements. We conclude that multicomponent seismic information derived from seismic land streamers can provide a significant improvement in earthquake hazard assessment over a standard single component approach with only a small addition in processing time.