Strong ground motion characteristics from 2016 central Italy earthquake sequence

Abstract

The Central Italy earthquake sequence has, to date, generated three mainshocks: M6.1 24 August, M5.9 26 October, and M6.5 30 October 2016. These events, along with aftershocks, were well recorded by Italian networks, and are among the normal fault earthquakes with the highest number of recordings globally. We process records for six events using procedures developed during the latest Next Generation Attenuation (NGA-West2) project, coordinated by the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center (PEER). Many recording sites lacked VS30 assignments, which we provide using measured shear wave velocity profiles where available and a local geology proxy otherwise. Stations at close distance, including near the hanging wall, exhibit fling step in some cases but no obvious rupture directivity. The data exhibit fast anelastic attenuation at large distances (>100 km), as predicted by recent Italy-adjusted global models, but not by Italy-specific models. We partition residuals from Italy-adjusted global models, finding negative event terms at short periods (weaker than average shaking). We apply Kriging of within-event peak acceleration and velocity residuals using a global semi-variogram model to estimate the spatial distribution of peak accelerations and velocities, which are generally most intense southwest of Mt. Vettore.