Estimation of maximum mass velocity from macroseismic data: A new method and application to archeoseismological dataстатья
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Аннотация:An important task in seismic hazard assessment is the estimation of intensity and frequency of rarestrong seismic shaking, in particular, the long-term peak ground velocity values (PGVs). A recentlyproposed method is suitable for simply estimating PGVs based on the examination of the magnitude ofdisplacements of rock blocks. The effectiveness of this method is demonstrated by results of studies onthe source zones of two large earthquakes and a vicinity of one strong explosion. In this study, themethod is applied to the examination of archeoseismological data from the ancient Rehovot-ba-Negevcity and other ancient cities from the Negev desert (in Southern Israel) where numerous evidences ofpresumable seismic damage were found earlier. The cities and also a sophisticated irrigation systemwithin the region, which existed in the Negev desert, were abandoned however in the middle of theseventh century. The abandonment could be caused by a combined effect, from not only the cessation ofthe state support from Byzantium as a result of the Arab conquest but also the severe destruction fromthe strong earthquake that hit the area at that time. The intensities of the seismic events that hit thecities were estimated earlier, which are within the range of 8e9. Our estimates indicate that the PGVvalues are about 1.5 m/s. Hence, the magnitude of the causative earthquake could be in the rangeM z 6.5e7.5, and the location of the epicenter might be at a distance of a few dozens of kilometers fromthe ancient Rehovot-ba-Negev city, while the other variants associated with the earthquake seem to beless probable.