Strong Motion Records of the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and its Attenuation Characteristics

Many strong motion records were obtained during the 2011 Off the Pacific Coast of Tohoku earthquake owing to the implementation of dense strong motion observation in Japan. The earthquake provides an opportunity to examine the characteristics of strong ground motion from a gigantic earthquake. Attenuations of peak acceleration and velocity are examined by comparing them to curves from existing attenuation relationships. When the shortest distance from the fault plane of the slip distribution model is used, curves for Mw8.0 to 8.3 give the smallest deviation from data, suggesting the saturation of ground motion intensity at large magnitudes. When the shortest distance from the strong motion generation areas is used, however, the scattering of data becomes smaller and the curve for Mw9.0 fits acceleration data. Results thus change with the definition of distance. This suggests that a consideration of the rupture heterogeneity is important in strong motion prediction for gigantic earthquakes.