A Comprehensive Interpretation of Strong Motions in the Mexican Volcanic Belt

Research Article| April 01, 2004 A Comprehensive Interpretation of Strong Motions in the Mexican Volcanic Belt Masahiro Iida; Masahiro Iida Search for other works by this author on: GSW Google Scholar Hiroshi Kawase Hiroshi Kawase Search for other works by this author on: GSW Google Scholar Author and Article Information Masahiro Iida Hiroshi Kawase Publisher: Seismological Society of America First Online: 09 Mar 2017 Online ISSN: 1943-3573 Print ISSN: 0037-1106 Copyright © 2004 by the Seismological Society of America Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (2004) 94 (2): 598–618. https://doi.org/10.1785/0120030059 Article history First Online: 09 Mar 2017 Cite View This Citation Add to Citation Manager Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Permissions Search Site Citation Masahiro Iida, Hiroshi Kawase; A Comprehensive Interpretation of Strong Motions in the Mexican Volcanic Belt. Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America 2004;; 94 (2): 598–618. doi: https://doi.org/10.1785/0120030059 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Refmanager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentBy SocietyBulletin of the Seismological Society of America Search Advanced Search Abstract Large-amplitude seismograms with extremely long duration have been recorded in the Valley of Mexico. Recently, we came to recognize important effects of the Mexican Volcanic Belt (MVB) on the seismograms. We interpret strong motions observed in the MVB by analyzing the three components of surface and borehole accelerograms recorded during the 14 September 1995 earthquake (MS 7.3). The target period range is between 0.1 and 10.0 sec, with emphasis on a 2.0- to 3.0-sec period range. In the lake-bed zone inside the valley, wave types of seismic motions are identified by calculating theoretical amplification of various seismic waves and cross-correlation functions between surface and borehole recordings. In the MVB, propagation velocities of dominant surface waves are estimated by analyses of recordings and are compared with theoretical velocities, and 2D/3D wave-propagation simulations for the MVB and the Mexico City Basin are performed. Our conclusions are the following. (1) We suggest that, while strong motions observed in the lake-bed zone are a mixture of P, S, Love, and Rayleigh waves, fundamental-mode Love waves are dominant. (2) Surface waves are found to be much more heavily amplified than S waves in the soft lake-bed deposit. (3) We confirm that the MVB is an important structure to amplify seismic motions. The lake-bed deposit, together with the basin structure, proves to remarkably amplify surface waves. (4) In the lake-bed deposit, quality factors are found to be about 3 in the long-period range of more than 1.5 sec. You do not have access to this content, please speak to your institutional administrator if you feel you should have access.