Ground Motion Simulation, Retrospect and Predictive Studies

Supervisor(s): K. Atakan, M.B. Sørensen, L. Ottemöller

Funding: UiB

The PhD project is focused on earthquake hazard based on ground motion simulations of earthquake scenarios. The project is comprised of two separate studies:

Part 1 is a retrospect study for the M=8.0, May 12, 2008 Wenchuan, China earthquake, which killed more than 70.000 people and left more than 5 million people homeless. The ground shaking is simulated based on published slip inversions and compared to the distribution of damage as observed during a field trip to the earthquake affected area.

Part 2 is a predictive study for the city of İzmir, Turkey. Ground motion simulations are conducted for several faults in the vicinity of İzmir and the most critical faults with respect to the seismic hazard in İzmir are identified. The uncertainties in the simulated ground motions related to uncertain input parameters are estimated in a sensitivity study.