Real-time characterization of large earthquakes using the predominant period derived from 1Hz GPS data

Psimoulis, Panos; Houli�, Nicolas; Behr, Yannik

Abstract

Earthquake early warning (EEW) systems’ performance is driven by the trade-off between the need for a rapid alert and the accuracy of each solution. A challenge for many EEW systems has been the magnitude saturation for large events (Mw>7) and the resulting underestimation of seismic moment magnitude. In this study, we test the performance of high-rate (1Hz) GPS, based on seven seismic events, to evaluate whether long-period ground motions can be measured well enough to infer reliably earthquake predominant periods. We show that high-rate GPS data allow the computation of a GPS-based predominant period (τg) to estimate lower bounds for the magnitude of earthquakes and distinguish between large (MW>7) and great (MW>8) events and thus extend the capability of EEW systems for larger events. It is also identified the impact of the different value of the smoothing factor α on the τg results and how the sampling rate and the computation process differentiates τg from the commonly used τp.

Citation

Psimoulis, P., Houlié, N., & Behr, Y. (in press). Real-time characterization of large earthquakes using the predominant period derived from 1Hz GPS data. Geophysical Research Letters, https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL075816

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Dec 12, 2017
• Online Publication Date: Jan 24, 2018
• Deposit Date: Jan 25, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 25, 2018
• Journal: Geophysical Research Letters
• Print ISSN: 0094-8276
• Electronic ISSN: 0094-8276
• Publisher: American Geophysical Union
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL075816
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/906918
• Publisher URL: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2017GL075816/abstract