Natural arches are culturally valued rock landforms common in sedimentary rocks of the Colorado Plateau and additionally occur broadly around the world. Recent notable collapses of some of these landforms have highlighted the need to better understand the mechanics of their failure. While environmentally driven weathering has been the focus of most previous studies of arch collapse, comparably little attention has been given to anthropogenic vibration sources and how these often slight- to moderate-magnitude shaking events might steadily weaken arches over time. We collected 12–15 months of continuous ambient vibration data from arches and nearby bedrock in both anthropogenically ‘noisy’ and ‘quiet’ locations and used these datasets to develop an annual model of arch peak ground velocity based on magnitude-cumulative frequency distributions. Working from these models, we added vibration events of varying magnitude or frequency of occurrence, informed by field data, imitating arch vibration in response to different anthropogenic activities such as helicopter flights or induced earthquakes. We then applied subcritical fracture mechanics principles to predict annual crack growth rates in an idealized arch under these different vibration conditions. Our results demonstrate that in a single year, cracks grow minimally longer (∼1%) in ‘noisy’ environments than in areas not experiencing anthropogenicmore »
This content will become publicly available on July 1, 2023
Ground Motion Amplification at Natural Rock Arches in the Colorado Plateau
Abstract Thousands of rock arches are situated within the central Colorado Plateau—a region experiencing small- to moderate-magnitude contemporary seismicity. Recent anthropogenic activity has substantially increased the seismicity rate in some areas, raising questions about the potential for vibration damage of natural arches, many of which have high cultural value. However, predictions of the vibration response and potential for damage at a given site are limited by a lack of data describing spectral amplification of ground motion on these landforms. We analyzed 13 sandstone arches in Utah, computing site-to-reference spectral amplitude ratios from continuous ambient seismic data, and compared these to spectral ratios during earthquakes and teleseismic activity. We found peak ground velocities on arches at their dominant natural modes (in the range of 2–20 Hz) are ∼20–180 times the velocity on adjacent bedrock, due to amplification arising from slender geometry and low modal damping (0.8%–2.7%). Ambient spectral ratios are generally 1.2–2.0 times the coseismic spectral ratios. Because arches experience highly amplified ground motion, the range of earthquakes considered potentially damaging may need to be revised to include lower-magnitude events. Our results have implications for conservation management of these and other culturally valuable landforms.
- Award ID(s):
- 1831283
- Publication Date:
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10378600
- Journal Name:
- The Seismic Record
- Volume:
- 2
- Issue:
- 3
- Page Range or eLocation-ID:
- 156 to 166
- ISSN:
- 2694-4006
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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