The Effect of Crustal Structure on Strong Ground Motion Attenuation Relations in Eastern North America

Strong ground motion attenuation relations are usually described by smoothly decreasing functions of distance. However, consideration of wave propagation in the crust suggests that attenuation relations should be more complex. Such complexity may be present in strong ground motion data for eastern North American earthquakes, which show amplitudes in the distance range of 60 to 150 km that lie above the trends at smaller and greater distances. Using a wavenumber integration method to compute Green's functions and close-in recordings of several earthquakes as empirical source functions, we have generated synthetic seismograms that are in good agreement with regional and strong-motion recordings of eastern North American earthquakes. From these synthetic seismograms, we have shown that the observed interval of relatively high amplitudes may be attributable to postcritically reflected S waves from the Moho. The presence and location of the interval of relatively high amplitudes is highly dependent on the crustal velocity structure and may therefore be expected to show regional variation. However, for any realistic structure model, there will be a transition in the attenuation relation from an interval at shorter distances (less than about 100 km) that is dominated by direct waves to an interval at greater distances that is dominated by postcritically reflected waves. The synthetic seismograms have response spectral velocities that match those of the recorded data, and their mbLg values are in good agreement with observed values.