Physics-Based Broadband Ground-Motion Simulations for Probable Mw ≥ 7.0 Earthquakes in the Marmara Sea Region (Turkey)

The city of Istanbul is characterized by one of the highest levels of seismic risk in the Mediterranean region. An important source of such increased risk is the high probability of large earthquake occurrence during the coming years, which stands at about 65% likelihood owing to the existing seismic gap and the post-1999 earthquake stress transfer at the western portion of the North Anatolian fault zone. In this study, we simulated hybrid broadband time histories from selected earthquakes having magnitude M-w > 7.0 in the Sea of Marmara within 10-20 km of Istanbul, the most probable scenarios for simulated generation of the devastating 1509 event in this region. Physics-based rupture scenarios, which may be an indication of potential future events, are adopted to estimate the ground-motion characteristics and its variability in the region. Two simulation techniques are used to compute a realistic time series, considering generic rock site conditions. The first is a full 3D wave propagation method used for generating low-frequency seismograms, and the second is a stochastic finite-fault model approach based on dynamic corner-frequency high-frequency seismograms. Dynamic rupture is generated and computed using a boundary integral equation method, and the propagation in the medium is realized through a finite-difference approach. The results from the two simulation techniques are then merged by performing a weighted summation at intermediate frequencies to calculate a broadband synthetic time series. The simulated hybrid broadband ground motions are validated by comparing peak ground acceleration, peak ground velocity (PGV), and spectral accelerations (5% damping) at different periods with the ground-motion prediction equations in the region. Our simulations reveal strong rupture directivity and supershear rupture effects over a large spatial extent, which generate extremely high near-fault motions exceeding the 250 cm/s PGV along the entire length of the ruptured fault.