Modeling of rupture using strong motion generation area: a case study of Hualien earthquake (M w 6.1) occurred on April 18, 2019

Abstract

The strong Hualien earthquake (Mw 6.1) occurred along the suture zone of the Eurasian Plate and the Philippine Sea Plate, which struck the Hualien city in eastern Taiwan on April 18, 2019. The focal mechanism of this earthquake shows that it is caused by a rupture within a thrust. In the present study, the rupture plane responsible for this earthquake has been modeled using the modified semi-empirical technique (MSET). The whole rupture plane is assumed to be composed of strong motion generation areas (SMGAs) along which the slip occurs with large velocities. The spatiotemporal distribution of aftershocks of this earthquake within identified rupture plane suggests that there are two SMGAs within the rupture plane. The source displacement spectra (SDS) obtained from the observed records have been used to compute the source parameters of these two SMGAs. The MSET efficiently simulates strong ground motion (SGM) at the rock site. The shallow subsurface shear wave velocity profile at various stations has been used as an input to SHAKE91 algorithm for converting records at the surface to that at the rock site. The simulated records are compared with the observed records based on root-mean-square error (RMSE) in peak ground acceleration (PGA) of horizontal components. Various parameters of the rupture plane have been selected using an iterative forward modeling scheme. The accelerograms have been simulated for all the stations that lie within an epicentral distance ranging from 5 to 100 km using the final rupture plane parameters. The comparison of observed and synthetic records validates the effectiveness of the simulation technique and suggests that the Hualien earthquake consists of two SMGAs responsible for high-frequency SGM. © 2022, The Author(s) under exclusive licence to Institute of Geophysics, Polish Academy of Sciences & Polish Academy of Sciences.