Exploration of shallow subsoil structure atTecoman, Mexico. Comparison between active source refraction and two-station SPAC.

Francisco J. Chvez-Garca(1) and Juan Tejeda-Jcome(2)

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Instituto de Ingeniera, Universidad Nacional Autnoma de Mxico (paco@pumas.ii.unam.mx), Ingeniera Civil, Universidad de Colima (jjacome@ucol.mx). ABSTRACT We present a site effect study at Tecoman, a small city along the Pacific coast of Mexico. P-wave and S-wave refraction surveys were carried out at five sites within the city using a 24-channel Geometrics refraction seismograph with 4.5 Hz horizontal and vertical geophones. The sources were hammer blows on a steel plate for the P-wave profiles (offset of 4 m, equal to spacing between geophones) and lateral blows on a wooden plank fixed to the ground for the S-wave profiles (2 m offset, equal to the spacing between geophones). In addition, the ambient vibration was measured using the P-wave refraction deployment. The purpose of the study was to determine the subsoil structure in order to predict the ground motion amplification at Tecoman for expected future earthquakes. Refraction data were analyzed inverting travel times of first arrivals. However, the limited energy of the source and the large attenuation of wave propagation in soft soils limited the exploration depth, therefore the results could be obtained up to 20 m. The ambient vibration records were analyzed using the twostation version of the SPAC (SPatial AutoCorrelation) method. This method allows using average crosscorrelation computed between station pairs to obtain phase velocity dispersion curves. In turn, these dispersion curves were inverted to obtain the subsoil layering. Noise measurements were useful to determine the subsoil structure to larger depths than refraction surveys. The results will be useful to predict the ground motion at Tecoman.

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destructive Mexican earthquakes occurred there in 1995 (Pacheco et al., 1997) and 2003 (Singh et al., 2003; Nez-Corn et al., 2004). For this reason, we made a site effect study at Tecoman, close to the coast at the northern end of the subduction zone (Figure 1). Tecoman is a small city that suffered damage during the 2003 large earthquake. P-wave and S-wave refraction surveys were carried out at five sites within the city using a 24channel Geometrics refraction seismograph with 4.5 Hz horizontal and vertical geophones. The sources were hammer blows on a steel plate for the P-wave profiles and lateral blows on a wooden plank fixed to the ground for the S-wave profiles. In addition to these measurements, the ambient vibration was recorded using the P-wave geophone deployment. Five 60-sec windows of microtremors were recorded triggering the refraction seismograph without a source. These data were analysed using the two-station version of the SPAC (SPatial AutoCorrelation) method. Average cross-correlation between station pairs was inverted to obtain a phase velocity dispersion curve. In turn, this dispersion curve was inverted to obtain the subsoil layering. Given that noise measurements could be correlated among all stations pairs of the P-wave refraction deployment, the penetration depth was larger than that using a hammer source. The results will allow to compute expected ground motions for future earthquakes, expected to occur in the region.

KEY WORDS: refraction, surface waves, microtremors, SPAC method INTRODUCTION Shallow subsoil structure is important for site effect characterization in engineering. Site effects usually condition damage distribution during large earthquakes, such as those that are generated by the subduction zone along the Pacific coast in Western Mexico. An accurate estimate of site amplification may be incorporated in building codes and thus help prevent damages (ChvezGarca, 2007). The seismicity rate varies along the coast, with most earthquakes occurring to the South, on the coast of Guerrero. However, large earthquakes do occur along the northern section. The two more recent

Figure 1. Location map of Colima and Tecoman in Mexico. Subduction zone is shown as the solid line, parallel to the coast, with solid triangles. The solid rectangle shows the location of Tecoman city. The solid triangle indicates the location of Colimas volcano.

Proceedings of the 9th SEGJ International Symposium Imaging and Interpretation- , Sapporo, Japan 12-14 October 2009

Figure 2. Location of the five sites in Tecoman where refraction measurements were made.

MEASUREMENTS The data analyzed in this paper were recorded at Tecoman using two different types of measurements with the same instrument. We used a Geometrics, 24channel seismic refraction seismograph coupled to 4.5 Hz vertical and horizontal geophones at five sites within the city (Figure 2). At each site, three different measurements were made. The first was a standard Pwave refraction test. The spacing between vertical geophones and the source offset were 4 m. The source was hammer blows on a steel plate placed on the ground. Five blows were stacked by the seismograph. The second experiment was an S-wave refraction survey. The spacing between horizontal geophones and the offset were shortened to 2 m. The source was lateral blows on a wooden beam, pressed to the ground by the weight of the front axle of our vehicle. Five blows were stacked by the seismograph. In the S-waves measurements, we acquired two profiles hitting the beam on two sides. Thus, S-wave polarity was inverted and the identification of the first arrival of shear waves in the seismograms was facilitated. Finally, we used the P-wave profile (92 m long) to record ambient vibration. At each site, five windows of 60 sec duration of ambient vibration were recorded, triggering the seismograph without a source. ANALYSIS The analysis of the P- and S-wave refraction data followed standard procedures. Travel times were inverted with a least squares method to determine possible lateral variations for each profile, using the software SeisImager/2D by Geometrics. First break analysis, however, showed strong limitations. In the case of P-waves, first arrivals could only be clearly identified for distances smaller than 54 m. In the case of S waves, this distance was reduced to 28 m. Thus, only velocities of layers shallower than 20 m could be determined.

The results of first arrivals was complemented with the analysis of the ambient vibration records obtained wither with the refraction seismograph. For this analysis, we used the SPAC (Spatial AutoCorrelation) method (Aki, 1957), in its extension to two stations (Chvez-Garca et al., 2005). This method is applicable under the assumption that the seismic noise is stationary in time and space and that it consists mainly of surface waves. The use of the vertical component records allows us to ascribe our results to Rayleigh waves. It has been shown (Aki, 1957) that the average cross-correlation between two stations, computed in the frequency domain, takes the form of a Bessel function of first class and zero order. The argument of the Bessel function is the frequency multiplied by the distance between stations and divided by the phase velocity of the surface waves. Given that the only unknown is the phase velocity, we may compute cross-correlation between station pairs using band-pass filtered noise records, and repeat that computation for many central frequencies of the filter. The resulting functions may be inverted to obtain the phase velocity of Rayleigh waves at the central frequencies used for the band-pass filter. The method has been described in detail before (Ferrazzini et al., 1991; Metaxian, 1994; Chouet et al., 1998). The noise records obtained with the P-wave refraction profile were processed following closely Chvez-Garca et al. (2006). For each site, we averaged all possible cross-correlations at a fixed distance. For instance, the result for 4 m distance was obtained as the average of the crosscorrelation computed between all neighboring geophones (23 station pairs for a 24 geophone profile) and for the five 60-sec recording windows. The final results were very stable. RESULTS Figure 3 shows an example of the Vs 2D profile derived from the measurements at P-Torres site. The diagram shows the 2D structure derived from first break measurements. Soil structure consists of essentially flat layers. It is likely that the small lateral variations in thickness are in reality a reflection of small errors in picking S-wave arrival times.

Elevation [m]

Distance [m]

Figure 3. Example of the results obtained for S-wave refraction using a linear inversion of travel times at site 1 of Figure 2. The shear-wave velocity for each layer is given in m/s

Proceedings of the 9th SEGJ International Symposium Imaging and Interpretation- , Sapporo, Japan 12-14 October 2009

Figure 4. Correlation coefficients as a function of frequency and distance computed from ambient noise measurements using the P-wave refraction deployment at BOMB site. The result at a given distance was obtained as the average of all possible geophone pairs at that distance. These results correspond to the average for five 60 sec recorded windows. The weakness of the source signal, probably coupled to the strong attenuation expected in surficial sediments, limited clear arrivals to distances smaller than 28 m. As a result, Vs values can be defined only for the upper 20 m. The profile shown in Figure 3 has a one-way travel time of about 0.055 s, implying a resonant frequency larger than 4.5 Hz. Previous studies (Tejeda et al., 2008) had shown that site amplification at this site has a first peak at 0.68 Hz. Clearly, the refraction measurements are unable to sample the complete sedimentary column responsible for the local amplification Consider now the results from the ambient vibration measurements using the P-wave refraction profile array. Figure 4 shows the correlation coefficients (see Aki, 1957; Chvez-Garca et al., 2005), as a function of distance and frequency. Correlation coefficients are defined as average cross-correlation between station pairs normalized by the average autocorrelation. For each distance, we observe the oscillations as a function of frequency that characterize the Bessel function. The maximum values for the correlation coefficients occur at 2 Hz. For smaller frequencies, the geophones cannot record ambient vibration reliably and correlation values drop. At the other end, good results are obtained up to 10 Hz. The smaller distances are more reliable at higher frequencies. For the larger distances, correlations coefficients come from a smaller number of station pairs. The correlation coefficients were inverted to obtain a phase velocity dispersion curve at each measurement site. The results are shown in Figure 5. There are not large differences among the five sites. Shear-wave velocity at the surface is about 200 m/s at all sites. The largest phase velocities are larger than 600 m/s at 2 Hz, significantly larger than the values determined from active source refraction. The SPAC analysis of ambient vibration recorded with the P-wave refraction profile is able to see deeper in the ground than seismic

Figure 5. Phase velocity dispersion curves obtained from the correlation coefficients computed from ambient noise measurements using the P-wave refraction deployment at each of the five sites where refraction measurements were made. refraction using hammer blows as a source due to their small energy. Hammer blows could not be well recorded by the whole geophone lines. In contrast, the SPAC method is able to recover useful signal from the correlation of all station pairs. CONCLUSIONS We have presented the results of a study to explore subsoil in Tecoman, Mexico. The objective was to determine the subsoil structure required to model site effects expected during future earthquakes in the region and complements a previous study which addressed estimation of local amplification. Refraction experiments were carried at five sites within the city. Both P- and Swave profiles were measured. These data were processed using traditional first break analysis. In addition, ambient vibration was recorded using the P-wave refraction deployment. The ambient vibration measurements were processed using the extension of the SPAC method to station pairs. The refraction tests were penalized from the small power that may be transmitted to the soil by hammer blows (other sources are generally illegal, impractical or too expensive for microzonation purposes). Soft soils, which amplify the most ground motion during earthquakes, usually have small Q values, i.e., large attenuation of seismic waves. Attenuation affects most high frequency waves, those that can be generated in refraction surveys. Thus, the size of the refraction line (92 m for P-waves and 46 m for S-waves) could not be exploited and the effective length of the geophone lines was only half, limiting the depth for which results could be obtained to 23 m. The travel time for the resulting profiles showed that their thickness was too small to explain the dominant frequencies that have been observed. Thus, even if the depth of exploration reached almost 30 m and Vs30 values (Borcherdt, 1994) could have been determined, they would not have been

Proceedings of the 9th SEGJ International Symposium Imaging and Interpretation- , Sapporo, Japan 12-14 October 2009

representative of the soil deposits responsible for local site effects. The analysis of ambient vibration records from the P-wave refraction deployment using the SPAC method produced phase velocity dispersion curves that were reliable between 2 and 10 Hz. The observed phase velocities indicated that ambient noise measurements were able to reach larger depths than active refraction survey. Using ground vibration as the signal, we are able to take advantage of the whole length of the geophone deployment because the noise could be correlated even between the more distant geophone pairs. This makes ambient vibration measurements very appealing for shallow structure exploration using either the SPAC method, or exploiting the recently presented relation between time domain cross-correlation and the medium Greens function (e.g., Weaver and Lobkis, 2001; Snieder, 2004; Chvez-Garca and Rodrguez, 2007). The phase velocity dispersion curves showed small differences among the five investigated sites. Soil conditions in Tecoman consist of a soft soil layer about 50 m depth underlain by bedrock. The impedance contrast at the base of the sediments is large, which produces large amplification of ground motion and explains damages observed at Tecoman during previous earthquakes. The results obtained here will be useful to predict ground motion for future expected earthquakes in the region. The case of Tecoman is somewhat surprising. We have shown that even if the soil structure is quite simple, it is not easy to estimate the properties of the basement, which are required to correctly estimate maximum amplification. The case of Tecoman illustrates that, even when subsoil structure is not complex, different data must be crossed to estimate site effects reliably. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The help of J. Cuenca, S. Cedeo, and A. Preciado was essential for the refraction measurements. M. Manakou (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki) kindly helped us with the inversion of phase velocity dispersion curves. We thank the authorities from the different schools and public buildings where the temporal seismic stations were installed. Their assistance made our measurements possible. This study was supported by CONACYT, Mexico, through the contract SEP-2003-C02-43880/A. REFERENCES Aki, K., 1957, Space and time spectra of stationary stochastic waves, with special reference to microtremors, Bull. Earthquake Res. Inst. Tokyo Univ., 25, 415457. Borcherdt, R.D., 1994, Estimates of site-dependent response spectra for design (methodology and justification), Earthq. Spectra, 10, 617653. Chvez-Garca FJ., 2007, Site effects: from observation and modelling to accounting for them in building

codes, Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering, 4th International Conference of Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering Invited lectures, K.D. Pitilakis ed., Springer, 53-72. Chvez-Garca, F.J. and Rodrguez, M., 2007, The correlation of microtremors: empirical limits and relations between results in frequency and time domains, Geophys. J. Int., 171, 657-664. Chvez-Garca, F.J., Rodrguez, M., and Stephenson, W.R., 2005, An alternative approach to the SPAC analysis of microtremors: exploiting stationarity of noise, Bull. Seism. Soc. Am., 95, 277-293. Chvez-Garca, F.J., Rodrguez, M., Stephenson, WR., 2006, Subsoil structure using SPAC measurements along a line, Bull. Seism. Soc. Am., 96, 729-736. Chouet, B.C., DeLuca, G., Milana, P., Dawson, M., Martn, C., and Scarpa, R., 1998, Shallow velocity structure of Stromboli volcano, Italy, derived from small-aperture array measurements of Strombolian tremor, Bull. Seism. Soc. Am., 88, 653666. Ferrazzini, V., Aki, K., and Chouet, B., 1991, Characteristics of seismic waves composing Hawaiian volcanic tremor and gas-piston events observed by a near-source array, J. Geophys. Res., 96, 61996209. Metaxian, J.P., 1994, Etude sismologique et gravimtrique dun volcan actif: Dynamisme interne et structure de la Caldeira Masaya, Nicaragua, Ph.D. Thesis, Universit de Savoie, 319 pp. (in French). Pacheco J., Singh S.K., Dominguez J., Hurtado A., Quintanar L., Jimnez Z., Yamamoto J., Gutierrez C., Santoyo M., Bandy W., Guzmn M., Kostoglodov V., Reyes G., and Ramirez C., 1997, The October 9, 1995 Colima-Jalisco, Mxico earthquake (MW 8): an aftershock study and a comparison of this earthquake with those of 1932, Geophys, Res. Lett., 24, 2223-2226. Singh S.K., Pacheco J.F., Alcntara L., Reyes G., Ordaz M., Iglesias A., Alcocer S.M., Gutirrez C., Valds C., Kostoglodov V., Reyes C., Mikumo T., Quaas R., Anderson J.G., 2003, A preliminary report on the Tecomn, Mexico earthquake of 22 January 2003 (Mw 7.4) and its effects, Seism. Res. Lett., 74, 279289. Snieder, R., 2004, Extracting the Greens function from the correlation of coda waves: a derivation based on stationary phase, Phys. Rev. E, 69, doi:10.1103/PhysRevE.69.046610. Tejeda, J.C., F. Chvez-Garca, and M. Rodrguez (2008). Respuesta de sitio en Tecomn, Colima. Comparacin entre distintos instrumentos de medicin y diferentes tcnicas de anlisis, Annual Meeting of Mexican Geohysical Union, Puerto Vallarta, Jal., 26 al 31 de octubre, GEOS, 28, No. 2, SE03-9, 239. Weaver, R.L. and Lobkis, O.I., 2001, Ultrasonics without a source: thermal fluctuation correlations at MHz, Phys. Rev. Lett., 87, article 134301.

Proceedings of the 9th SEGJ International Symposium Imaging and Interpretation- , Sapporo, Japan 12-14 October 2009