This is a three-year collaborative research project between Drs. Marijan Dravinski and Keiiti Aki, University of Southern California, and Drs. Wen Kuo-Liang and Yeh Yeong-Tein, Academia Sinica, supported by the AIT (U.S.) - CCNAA (Taiwan) Cooperative Science Program. This proposal plans to develop a model to predict strong ground motion during earthquakes and to calibrate this model using the 3000 earthquake records collected from the Lanyang sedimentary basin in Taiwan. Local amplification of strong ground motion in a basin of sedimentary deposits is one of the most important issues in understanding earthquake hazards. The most notable case is the amplification of ground motion in the 1985 earthquake in Mexico City, which was more than 300 km from the source of the earthquake and suffered extensive damage. This research is very significant and can provide new insights into the nature of ground motion amplification and variation during earthquakes. The model calibrated using the SMART1 (Strong Motion Array in Taiwan, Phase 1) data can be applied to the Los Angeles Basin to reduce uncertainties in ground motion estimation. The damage potential for the Los Angeles Basin from a major earthquake is enormous. This project can bring a potential reduction in the loss of life and property.
