Study on the empirical relationships among magnitude, depth and strong earthquake fault displacement

Abstract: In the special seismic geological background of China, it is inevitable to encounter the action of seismic faults at the surface or deep underground, which often has a great impact on engineering construction. Both deterministic and probabilistic methods for analyzing the displacement of strong earthquake faults require the evaluation of the possibility of future earthquakes on active faults, especially the maximum potential earthquake magnitude and the maximum displacement of the corresponding faults in case of surface rupture. This paper establishes an empirical relationship between magnitude, source depth, and strong-motion fault displacement by collecting medium-earthquake rupture parameters for 295 seismic events worldwide. The reliability of the empirical equation is increased by taking the source depth into account on the basis of the previous consideration of the magnitude only, which can provide a strong reference basis for various engineering constructions carried out near the faults.