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Influence of slow active faults in probabilistic seismic hazard assessment: the northwestern margin of the València trough

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Abstract

Areas of low strain rate are typically characterized by low to moderate seismicity. The earthquake catalogs for these regions do not usually include large earthquakes because of their long recurrence periods. In cases where the recurrence period of large earthquakes is much longer than the catalog time span, probabilistic seismic hazard is underestimated. The information provided by geological and paleo-seismological studies can potentially improve seismic hazard estimation through renewal models, which assume characteristic earthquakes. In this work, we compare the differences produced when active faults in the northwestern margin of the València trough are introduced in hazard analysis. The differences between the models demonstrate that the introduction of faults in zones characterized by low seismic activity can give rise to significant changes in the hazard values and location. The earthquake and fault seismic parameters (recurrence interval, segmentation or fault length that controls the maximum magnitude earthquake and time elapsed since the last event or Te) were studied to ascertain their effect on the final hazard results. The most critical parameter is the recurrence interval, where shorter recurrences produce higher hazard values. The next most important parameter is the fault segmentation. Higher hazard values are obtained when the fault has segments capable of producing big earthquakes. Finally, the least critical parameter is the time elapsed since the last event (Te), when longer Te produces higher hazard values.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to Aníbal Ojeda for his help during the seismic hazard computations and to the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. This study was supported by the European project SAFE (contract n° EVG1-CT-2000-00023) and by the Consolider-Ingenio 2010 programme, under CSD2006-0004 “Topo-Iberia”. Hector Perea is indebted to the Dept. of Earth Sciences at the Universitetet i Bergen for all the facilities provided during his stay in Bergen. Seismic hazard computations were performed using the software CRISIS 99 kindly provided by Mario Ordaz. Some figures were prepared using the public domain Generic Mapping Tools GMT (Wessel and Smith 1998).

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  1. Department Geodinàmica i Geofísica, Universitat de Barcelona, Martí Franqués s/n, Barcelona, 08028, Spain

    Hector Perea

  2. Department of Earth Science, Universitetet i Bergen, Allegt 41, Bergen, 5007, Norway

    Kuvvet Atakan

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  1. Hector Perea
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  2. Kuvvet Atakan
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Correspondence to Hector Perea.

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Perea, H., Atakan, K. Influence of slow active faults in probabilistic seismic hazard assessment: the northwestern margin of the València trough. Nat Hazards 43, 379–396 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-007-9135-0

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