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Hawke’s Bay is situated on the east coast of the North Island of New Zealand and has experienced several earthquakes in the past during which triggered liquefaction. The 1931 Hawke’s Bay earthquake is particularly interesting because it was one of the most damaging earthquakes and the deadliest earthquake in New Zealand’s history. This study provides insights into the actual versus predicted liquefaction hazard in Napier and Hastings. Towards this end, the simplified Cone Penetration Test (CPT)-based liquefaction triggering evaluation procedure proposed by Boulanger & Idriss (2014) (BI14) is used in conjunction with Liquefaction Severity Number (LSN) framework to predict severity of surficial liquefaction manifestations across the region for the 1931 MS7.8 Hawke’s Bay event. A comparison of the results with post-event observations suggests that the liquefaction hazard is being over-predicted. One possible cause for this over-prediction includes the shortcomings liquefaction damage potential frameworks to predict the severity of surficial liquefaction manifestations in silty soil deposits. This study demonstrates how historical earthquake accounts in a region can be used to assess the risk of the region from future earthquakes.
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What is the Smallest Earthquake Magnitude that Needs to be Considered in Assessing Liquefaction Hazard?
Probabilistic assessments of the potential impact of earthquakes on infrastructure entails the consideration of smaller magnitude events than those generally considered in deterministic hazard and risk assessments. In this context, it is useful to establish if there is a magnitude threshold below which the possibility of triggering liquefaction can be discounted because such a lower bound is required for probabilistic liquefaction hazard analyses. Based on field observations and a simple parametric study, we conclude that earthquakes as small as moment magnitude 4.5 can trigger liquefaction in extremely susceptible soil deposits. However, for soil profiles that are suitable for building structures, the minimum earthquake magnitude for the triggering of liquefaction is about 5. We therefore propose that in liquefaction hazard assessments of building sites, magnitude 5.0 be adopted as the minimum earthquake size considered, while magnitudes as low as 4.5 may be appropriate for some other types of infrastructure.
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- PAR ID:
- 10134679
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Earthquake Spectra
- Volume:
- 35
- Issue:
- 3
- ISSN:
- 8755-2930
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1441 to 1464
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1193/032218EQS064M
