3

Determination of Site
Characteristics

3.1 Introduction
In seismic regions, geotechnical site investigations should obviously include the gathering of information about the physical nature of the site and its environs that will
allow an adequate evaluation of seismic hazard to be made. The scope of the investigation will be a matter of professional judgement, depending on the seismicity of the
area and the nature of the site, as well as of the proposed or existing construction.
In addition to the effects of local soil conditions upon the severity of ground motion,
the investigation should cover possible earthquake danger from geological or other
consequential hazards such as:

fault displacement;
subsidence (flooding and/or differential settlement);
liquefaction of cohesionless soils;
failure of sensitive or quick clays;
landslides;
mudflows;
dam failures;
water waves (tsunamis, seiches);
groundwater discharge changes.

The seismic characteristics of local geology and soil conditions described briefly in the
following section provides an introduction to the site investigations, and to the determination of design ground motions and soil response analyses described in Chapters
4 and 5.

3.2 Local Geology and Soil Conditions

In many earthquakes the local geology and soil conditions have had a profound influence on site response. The term local is a somewhat vague one, generally meaning
Earthquake Risk Reduction D.J. Dowrick
2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd ISBN: 0-471-49688-X (HB)

28

Determination of site characteristics

local compared to the total terrain transversed between the earthquake source and the
site. On the assumption that the gross bedrock vibration will be similar at two adjacent
sites, local differences in geology and soil produce different surface ground motions at
the two sites. Factors influencing the local modifications to the underlying motion are
the topography and nature of the bedrock and the nature and geometry of the depositional soils. Thus, the term local may involve a depth of a kilometre or more, and an
area within a horizontal distance of several kilometres from the site.
Soil conditions and local geological features affecting site response are numerous,
and some of the more important are now discussed with reference to Figure 3.1.
(1) The greater the horizontal extent (L1 or L2 ) of the softer soils, the less the
boundary effects of the bedrock on the site response. Mathematical modelling is
influenced by this, as discussed in Section 5.2.2.
(2) The depth (H1 or H2 ) of soil overlying bedrock affects the dynamic response, the
natural period of vibration of the ground increasing with increasing depth. This
helps to determine the frequency of the waves amplified or filtered out by the soils
and is also related to the amount of soil-structure interaction that will occur in
an earthquake (Sections 5.2 and 5.3). The Mexico earthquakes of 1957 and 1985
witnessed extensive damage to long-period structures in the former lake bed area
of Mexico City where the flexible lacustrine deposits caused great amplification
of long period waves (Rosenblueth, 1960; Romo and Seed, 1986). A more typical
example of an earthquake where the fundamental period of structures which were
most damaged was closely related to depth of alluvium, was that in Caracas in
1967 (Seed et al., 1972). Again, long-period structures were damaged in areas of
greater depth of alluvium.
(3) The slope of the bedding planes (valleys 2 and 3 in Figure 3.1) of the soils
overlying bedrock obviously affects the dynamic response; but it is less easy to
deal rigorously with non-horizontal strata.
(4) Changes of soil types horizontally across a site (sites F and G in Figure 3.1) affect
the response locally within that site, and may profoundly affect the safety of a
structure straddling the two soil types.
(5) The topography of both the bedrock and the deposited soils has various effects on
the incoming seismic waves, such as reflection, refraction, focusing, and scattering. Unfortunately many of these effects always remain suppositional; for
instance, while focusing effects in bedrock (valleys 1 and 2 in Figure 3.1) may
be amenable to calculation, how are the response modifications at sites G and J
to be reliably predicted due to these effects in valley 3?
While there will always be some inherent variability (uncertainty) in the spatial
distribution of ground motion, it may well be that geological features such as
hidden irregularities in the bedrock topography explain some of the otherwise
unexplained differences of response observed at nearby sites. For example, in the
1971 San Fernando earthquake (Housner and Jennings, 1972), at two locations
on the campus of the California Institute of Technology, the peak acceleration
recorded at one site was 21% g while only 11% g was recorded at the other;
whereas the local soil profiles at both locations were considered identical.

Bedrock

H1

L1

Figure 3.1

H2

Schematic diagram illustrating local geology and soil features

L2

Bedrock

Local geology and soil conditions

29

30

Determination of site characteristics

(6) Another topographical feature affecting response is that of ridges (Site B in

Figure 3.1) where magnification of basic motion by factors as high as about two
may occur (Section 5.2.2).
(7) Slopes of sedimentary deposits may, of course, completely fail in earthquakes.
In steep terrain (Site H in Figure 3.1) failure may be in the form of landslides.
This occurred in the Northern Peru earthquakes of 31 May 1970, in which whole
towns were buried and about 20,000 people were killed (Cluff, 1971), by one
particular avalanche which travelled 18 km at speeds of 200400 km/h.
(8) Spectacular soil failures can also occur in gentle slopes, as seen in the 1964
Alaskan earthquake (Seed 1968), and again in the 1968 Tokachi-Oki earthquake
(Suzuki, 1971). The slope failures in the Alaskan earthquake were mostly related
to liquefaction of layers of soil. For instance, landslides occurred in basically clay
deposits (Figure 3.2) where liquefaction occurred in thin lenses of sand contained
in the clay. In the Tokachi-Oki earthquake, some of the slope failures resulted
from upper soil layers sliding on a slippery (wet) supporting layer of clay. This
greasy back situation could occur as illustrated in Figure 3.1, Site E.
Similar phenomena are known to occur on land in highly sensitive (i.e. quick)
clays and on the sea floor, where normally consolidated clays with slopes of less
than one degree can fail if subjected to external forces such as earthquakes or
waves (Henkel, 1970). During the development of the North Sea oil and gas fields
the author was involved in a study (Ove Arup and Partners, 1980) in which it was
shown that slopes of less than 1 degree would fail under a ground acceleration
of about 0.1 g.

Elevation (m)
20
10
0
10

Sand lenses

20 m
20
10
0
10

Soil profile before earthquake

20
10
0
10

Liquefied sand

20
10
0
10

Soil profile during earthquake

20
10
0
10

Failure surface

20
10
0
10

Soil profile through slide area

Figure 3.2

Conceptual development of Turnagain Heights landslide, Anchorage, Alaska, due

to liquefaction of sand lenses (after Seed, 1968) (reproduced by permission of the
American Society of Civil Engineers)

Ground classes and microzones

31

(9)

The water content of the soil is an important factor in site response. This applies
not only to sloping soils as mentioned above, but liquefaction may also occur
in flat terrain composed of saturated cohesionless soils (Section 5.2.2). Classical examples of failures of this type occurred in the Alaskan and Tokachi-Oki
earthquakes referred to above, and in the much-studied 1964 Niigata earthquake.

(10)

Faults of varying degrees of potential activity sometimes cross the site of proposed or existing construction and cases of damage have been recorded. The
recurrence intervals of given levels of fault displacement both horizontal and
vertical, and the structures ability to tolerate the design displacement, sometimes
need to be evaluated (Section 4.8).

(11)

Water waves are sometimes generated by earthquakes. Those occurring in the

sea, called tsunami, are caused by vertical displacements of blocks of sea bed.
Where the resulting high-velocity, low-amplitude surface wave in the sea reaches
the shore, waves of considerable height (10 m) may surge well beyond the normal
high tide limit, hundreds of metres inland in flat terrain. These extreme effects
only occur where the topography of the coastline focuses the wave energy,
such as the narrow inlets of the southern Alaskan coast, where a disastrous
tsunami struck in the 1964 Great Alaska earthquake. Various other coastlines
are susceptible to damaging tsunami, particularly the Pacific and Indian Oceans,
in which most of the worlds tsunami are generated along shallow offshore
earthquake belts (Figure 2.1). Tsunami damage can be serious in cases where
the causative earthquake has occurred at any distance from local to thousands
of kilometres away.
Water waves called seiches may also occur in the enclosed waters of lakes
and harbours due to resonance effects or landslides, and, while not as large as
tsunami, seiches have caused considerable damage.
More information on seismic water waves should be sought in the specialist
literature, such as the overview by Wiegel (1976).

(12)

Changes in groundwater discharge occur after earthquakes, apparently due to

changes in porewater pressure. The discharge may cause local flooding or streams
to dry up, extensive sand boils, or erosion, such as observed in the 1983 Borah
Peak, Idaho earthquake (Wood et al., 1985).

(13)

Finally, the seismic response of a site and structures on it is of course a function

of the local soil types and their condition (ground classes). This is illustrated
by the very different response spectra for different soils shown in Figure 3.3.
The dynamic properties of individual soils are described in terms of mechanical properties such as shear modulus, damping, density, and compactability as
discussed in Section 5.2.

3.3

Ground Classes and Microzones

As soil types and thicknesses, and to a lesser extent rock, vary widely from site to site
in a region and worldwide, many different ways of classifying sites exist. Fortunately
as knowledge has grown in recent years of site response to earthquakes, there has been

32

Determination of site characteristics

4

Spectral acceleration
Maximum ground acceleration

Total number of records analysed: 104

Spectra for 5% damping

Soft to medium clay and sand - 15 records

Deep cohesionless soils (>250 ft) - 30 records

Stiff soil conditions (<150 ft) - 31 records
2

Rock - 28 records

0.5

1.0

1.5
Period seconds

2.0

2.5

3.0

(a)

Total number of records analysed: 104

Spectral acceleration
Maximum ground acceleration

Spectra for 5% damping

Soft to medium clay and sand - 15 records

Deep cohesionless soils (>250 ft) - 30 records

Stiff soil conditions (<150 ft) - 31 records

Rock - 28 records
2

1
AEC regulatory guide
0

0.5

1.0

1.5
Period seconds

2.0

2.5

3.0

(b)

Figure 3.3

(a) Mean acceleration spectra for different site conditions; (b) mean plus one
standard deviation (84 percentile) acceleration spectra for different site conditions
(after Seed et al., 1974)