Evaluation of site effects in the Aterno river valley (Central Italy) from aftershocks of the 2009 L'Aquila earthquake
A temporary network of 33 seismic stations was deployed in the area struck by the 6th April 2009, Mw 6.3, L’Aquila earthquake (central Italy), with the aim to investigate the site amplification within the Aterno river Valley. The seismograms of 18 earthquakes recorded by 14 of the 33 stations were used to evaluate the average horizontal to vertical spectral ratio (HVSR) for each site and the standard horizontal spectral ratio (SSR) between a site and a reference station. The obtained results have been compared to the geological and geophysical information in order to explain the resonance frequencies and the amplification levels with respect to surface geology of the valley. The result indicate that there is no uniform pattern of amplification, due to the complex geologic setting, as the thickness and degree of cementation of the deposits is highly variable. As consequence, a large number of the local site response is observed, therefore it is very difficult to elaborate a unique model that can explain such a variability of the amplification.
Proposal for a soil classification based on parameters alternative or complementary to Vs,30
The selection of specific elastic response spectra according to soil categories is the easiest way to account for site effects in engineering projects and general-purpose hazard maps. Most of the international seismic codes make use of the average shear wave velocity of the upper 30 m (Vs,30) to discriminate soil categories, although some doubts arose about the capability of Vs,30 to predict actual soil amplification. In this work we propose two soil classifications in which the soil fundamental frequency (f0) becomes either an alternative or a complement to Vs,30. The performance of the derived categorizations is achieved through the estimation of the standard deviation associated to ground motion prediction equations of acceleration response spectra, considering recordings extracted from the Italian strong motion data base. The results indicate that there is a significant reduction of the standard deviation when the classification is based on the couple of variables Vs,30–f0, although a classification based of the single f0 also leads to satisfactory results, comparable with those obtained assuming a classification scheme based on Vs,30.