Active fault databases: building a bridge between earthquake geologists and seismic hazard practitioners, the case of the QAFI v.3 database

Active fault databases are a very powerful and useful tool in seismic hazard assessment, particularly when singular faults are considered seismogenic sources. Active fault databases are also a very relevant source of information for earth scientists, earthquake engineers and even teachers or journal...

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Detalhes bibliográficos
Autores: García Mayordomo, Julián, Martín Banda, Raquel, Insua Arévalo, Juan Miguel, Álvarez Gómez, José Antonio, Martínez Díaz, José Jesús, Cabral, Joao
Formato: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2017
País:España
Recursos:Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM)
Repositorio:Docta Complutense
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:docta.ucm.es:20.500.14352/18596
Acesso em linha:https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/18596
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palavra-chave:550.8
551.2
Sismology
Geodinámica
Sismología (Geología)
2507 Geofísica
2507.05 Sismología y Prospección Sísmica
Descrição
Resumo:Active fault databases are a very powerful and useful tool in seismic hazard assessment, particularly when singular faults are considered seismogenic sources. Active fault databases are also a very relevant source of information for earth scientists, earthquake engineers and even teachers or journalists. Hence, active fault databases should be updated and thoroughly reviewed on a regular basis in order to keep a standard quality and uniformed criteria. Desirably, active fault databases should somehow indicate the quality of the geological data and, particularly, the reliability attributed to crucial fault-seismic parameters, such as maximum magnitude and recurrence interval. In this paper we explain how we tackled these issues during the process of updating and reviewing the Quaternary Active Fault Database of Iberia (QAFI) to its current version 3. We devote particular attention to describing the scheme devised for classifying the quality and representativeness of the geological evidence of Quaternary activity and the accuracy of the slip rate estimation in the database. Subsequently, we use this information as input for a straightforward rating of the level of reliability of maximum magnitude and recurrence interval fault seismic parameters. We conclude that QAFI v.3 is a much better database than version 2 either for proper use in seismic hazard applications or as an informative source for non-specialized users. However, we already envision new improvements for a future update.