Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, Vol. 106, No. 4, pp. 1518–1534, August 2016, doi: 10.

1785/0120150034

Ground-Motion Prediction Equations for Subduction Interface

Earthquakes in Japan Using Site Class and Simple
Geometric Attenuation Functions
by John X. Zhao, Xuan Liang, Fei Jiang, Hao Xing, Min Zhu, Ruibin Hou,
Yingbin Zhang, Xiaowen Lan, David A. Rhoades, Kojiro Irikura,
Yoshimitsu Fukushima, and Paul G. Somerville

Abstract We presented a set of ground-motion prediction equations (GMPEs) for the

horizontal components of strong-motion records from subduction interface events in
Japan. We assembled and processed in a consistent manner a large set of strong-motion
records from reliably identified subduction interface events up to the end of 2012. The
GMPEs were based on a set of simple geometric attenuation functions, and site class was
based on site period as the site parameter. We adopted a bilinear magnitude-scaling func-
tion hinged at M w 7.1 and found that the magnitude-scaling rate for large events is much
smaller than that for smaller events. To reliably determine the magnitude-scaling rate for
events with M w ≥ 7:1, we used a set of strong-motion records obtained since 1968 to
increase the number of records from large events. A small number of strong-motion
records are from recording stations with inferred site classes using the response spectral
ratio of the horizontal-to-vertical components or a geological description of the surface
soil layers. The effect of site information quality for subduction interface events was
examined using a goodness-of-fit parameter from a dataset with or without the sites
having an inferred site class. The site information quality made a significant difference
at all spectral periods, because the model fit improved significantly when the sites with
inferred classes were excluded. We modeled the effect of volcanic zones using an an-
elastic attenuation coefficient applied to the horizontal portion of the seismic-wave travel
distance within a set of assumed volcanic zones. The within-event residuals were ap-
proximately separated into within-site and between-site components, and the correspond-
ing standard deviations were calculated using a random effects model. The between-site
standard deviations vary significantly among site classes and with spectral periods.

Online Material: Figures showing distributions of between-event and within-event

residuals.

Introduction
Ground-motion prediction equations (GMPEs) are an
important component in earthquake engineering and prob-
abilistic seismic-hazard analyses. In the last decade or so,
many modern GMPEs have been published (e.g., Allen and
Wald, 2009), including the Next Generation Attenuation
(NGA) models mainly based on strong-motion records from
California and supplemented by shallow crustal records from
Taiwan, Japan, and Turkey.
For subduction zones, a relatively small number
of GMPEs have been developed, including Atkinson and
Boore (2003); Zhao, Zhang, et al. (2006); McVerry et al.
(2006); Kanno et al. (2006); and Ghofrani and Atkinson
(2014). The model by Kanno et al. (2006) was also based
on strong-motion records from Japan, but earthquake cat-
egories were not used as a model parameter. Abrahamson
et al. (2016) developed the most recent model for strong-
motion records from global subduction earthquakes, in-
cluding 2590 records from 63 subduction slab events and
953 records from 43 subduction interface (referred to as in-
terface hereafter) events. Their dataset for interface events
contains far fewer strong-motion records than the dataset
used in the present study.

1518
GMPEs for Subduction Interface Earthquakes in Japan
Table 1
Number of Records in Each Site Class for Two
Datasets from Japan
SC I SC II SC III SC IV Total
Dataset 1 1563 995 360 656 3574
Dataset 2 1494 786 284 547 3111
Zhao, Zhang, et al. (2006) showed that interface events,
usually with a reverse or thrust focal mechanism and a maxi-
mum depth of 50 km, produce strong ground motions with
different frequency content from those of shallow crustal or
subduction slab events. In their study, all types of events
were grouped together, and the same site terms were used
for all events. A constant term, a linear magnitude term, and
a magnitude squared term were used for the interface events.
Zhao, Zhang, et al. (2006) used a common depth term and
common site terms for each spectral period and for all three
types of events. A total of 1508 records in their study were
from interface events, and only a small number of recording
stations had a measured shear-wave velocity profile down
to engineering bedrock. Most stations were classified using
response spectral ratios between the horizontal-to-vertical
(H/V) components as described by Zhao, Irikura, et al. (2006).
Zhao, Zhang, et al. (2006) used the strong-motion records in
Japan up to the end of 2003, and many high-quality records
have been obtained since then.
A major disadvantage in the Zhao, Zhang, et al. (2006)
study is that the model standard deviations are the same
for all three earthquake categories. This feature can have a
significant negative effect on a probabilistic seismic-hazard
analysis, if the standard deviations differ among earthquake
categories. For example, the interface events may have a
smaller model standard deviation than that for subduction
slab events, and the seismic hazard from interface events may
be overestimated, whereas the hazards from slab events may
be underestimated.
In the last two decades, a large number of high-quality
strong-motion records from interface events have been ob-
tained, and now there are enough records to establish sepa-
rate GMPEs for each category of events (Zhao and Rhoades,
2014). Zhao, Zhou, et al. (2016) presented a GMPE for shal-
low crustal and upper-mantle events and Zhao, Jiang, et al.
(2016) presented a GMPE for subduction slab events. The
models derived for interface events are presented in this
article.
Zhao, Zhou, et al. (2015) identified interface earth-
quakes that occur at the interface between the crust and
the subducting slab or between the mantle wedge and the
subducting slab at a depth of 50 km or less. The other criteria
are that the focal depth is within
5 km of the subduction
interface boundary defined by Slab1.0 (Hayes et al., 2012),
the focal mechanism must be reverse or thrust, and the dip
angle for one of the nodal planes is within
15° of the dip
angle of the subduction interface. Zhao, Zhou, et al. (2015)
1519
classified the earthquakes since 1996 in Japan and demon-
strated that the classification they adopted led to the best
goodness of fit for the GMPEs using depth-scaled geometric
attenuation functions. The earthquake categories assigned to
the events used in the present study can be found in the elec-
tronic supplement to the article by Zhao, Zhou, et al. (2015).
Zhao and Rhoades (2014), Zhao, Zhou, et al. (2016),
and Zhao, Jiang, et al. (2016) showed that the exclusion of
strong-motion records from stations with inferred site class
leads to improved model fit in terms of maximum log like-
lihood (MLL) for shallow crustal and upper-mantle events
and for slab events. In the present study, we will test if the
exclusion of subduction interface records from sites with
inferred site class improves the model fit.
We use site class based on site period as the site term,
and the site classes are defined in Table 1, together with the
approximate National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Pro-
gram site classes (Building Seismic Safety Council [BSSC],
2000) in Zhao, Hu, et al. (2015). We adopted the nonlinear
site terms based on Zhao, Hu, et al. (2015) and the extended
nonlinear site terms from Zhao, Zhou, et al. (2016).
Zhao and Xu (2012) investigated the magnitude-scaling
rates for large interface earthquakes with a moment magnitude
over 6.5, using strong-motion data from interface earthquakes
in Japan. Their study showed that the magnitude-scaling rates
were relatively small for large interface earthquakes with a
moment magnitude over 7.0 compared with those for smaller
events. In the present study, we used a bilinear magnitude-
scaling function hinged at M w 7.1 as presented by Zhao
(2014), Zhao, Jiang, et al. (2016), and Zhao, Zhou, et al.
(2016). The hinge in the bilinear model reduces the effect
of the relatively large number of events with an M w ≤ 7:1 on
the magnitude-scaling rate for a relatively small number of
large earthquakes.
Following the study by Zhao (2010), we used the MLL
in the present study, rather than the model standard devia-
tions, as the indicator of goodness of fit for a GMPE in a
similar manner to that used by Zhao, Zhou, et al. (2016). The
advantages of using MLL were described in the Zhao (2010)
and Zhao and Rhoades (2014) studies.
Strong-Motion Dataset
In this study, we constructed two datasets. We used the
first dataset to derive the magnitude-scaling rates for earth-
quakes with an Mw ≥ 7:1. To have as many large events as
possible, we used 76 interface earthquakes in Japan since
1968, including the large earthquakes from the dataset used
by Zhao, Zhang, et al. (2006). Table 1 shows the number of
records in each site class, and 3574 records in total were
used. The first dataset has 1222 records from 13 interface
earthquakes with an M w ≥ 7:1. All records from earth-
quakes before 1996 and some records from K-NET are from
stations with site classes inferred from geological descrip-
tions or H/V response spectral ratios. The inferred site
classes are unlikely to be as reliable as those from the
1520
Figure 1. (a) The distribution of earthquakes used in the present
study with respect to fault depth and moment magnitude and (b) dis-
tribution of strong-motion records with respect to source distance
and moment magnitude. The color version of this figure is available
only in the electronic edition.
measured shear-wave velocity profiles. However, we expect
that the imprecision associated with site class for a small
number of sites may not significantly affect the estimated
magnitude term for large events. The magnitude term for
events with an M w ≥ 7:1 was, therefore, determined using
the first dataset. We then constructed the second dataset by
removing the records from sites with an inferred site class
in the first dataset. Table 1 shows the number of records in
each site class for the second dataset. A total of 463 records
were excluded. The second dataset was used to develop
the final GMPE. Figure 1a shows the distribution of earth-
quakes with respect to fault-top depth and magnitude, and
Figure 1b shows the distribution of strong-motion records
with respect to source distance and magnitude for the sec-
ond dataset.
The 2011 Tohoku earthquake with Mw 9 is the largest
well-recorded earthquake in seismological history. We used
413 records from this event and a similar number of records
from the foreshock and aftershocks of the Tohoku earth-
quake. These records provide an invaluable constraint on the
magnitude-scaling rate.
J. X. Zhao, et al.
We have fault rupture models for a number of interface
earthquakes, and the references for these models were pre-
sented in the electronic supplement to the article of Zhao,
Zhou, et al. (2016).
GMPE Model Forms
Zhao (2010) found that the anelastic attenuation rate for
shallow interface events (0–25 km) is larger than that for re-
cords from deep interface events with a depth over 25 km. In
the present study, we also tested whether the two groups of
events may need different source terms because of the differ-
ent material properties at the shallow and deep interfaces
along the subducting plate. In our dataset for the final model,
798 records are from 11 shallow events. For interface events
with a focal depth of 25 km or less, the following function
was used for the source effects
fmintS mi ; hi   bint hi  γ intS
EQ-TARGET;temp:intralink-;df1;313;533


cintS mi if mi ≤mc
 ; 1
cintS mc  dint mi − mc  if mi >mc
in which γ intS is the constant term for shallow interface
events, bint , cintS , and dint are the regression coefficients for
fault-top depth h and magnitude terms, respectively. Moment
magnitude is denoted by m instead of M w for simplicity, and
mc is a magnitude constant; intS refers to the shallow inter-
face events; i refers to the ith event in the dataset.
For interface events with a focal depth over 25 km, the
following function was used for the source effect
fmintD mi ; hi   bint hi  γ intS
EQ-TARGET;temp:intralink-;df2;313;366


cintD mi if mi ≤mc
 ;2
cintD mc  dint mi − mc  if mi >mc
in which intD means that the term is associated with the deep
interface events. Coefficient cintD is the magnitude-scaling rate
for events with a magnitude of mc or less.
In equations (1) and (2), we used a bilinear magnitude-
scaling function hinged at M w  mc based on the results of
Zhao and Xu (2012), Zhao (2014), and Zhao and Rhoades
(2014), and mc 7.1 was selected for all interface events.
For shallow interface earthquakes, the following model
was used:
loge yi;j   fmintS  gint loge ri;j   gintSL loge xi;j
EQ-TARGET;temp:intralink-;df3a;313;184
 200:0  eintS xi·j  eVint xVi;j  γ int
 loge A  ξi;j  ηi 3a
 
μi;j
EQ-TARGET;temp:intralink-;df3b;313;113 loge  ξi;j  ηi ; 3b
yi;j
GMPEs for Subduction Interface Earthquakes in Japan 1521

in which j denotes the jth record in the ith event. Variable y Coefficient gintDL is the large distance geometric attenuation
is for peak ground acceleration (PGA) or 5% damped rate for deep events. Distance constant xinto  10 was also
response spectrum in units of the acceleration due to gravity, used to avoid magnitude–distance oversaturation. For Japan,
and μ denotes the recorded PGA or spectrum. Variable e the closest distance to a deep interface event is approximately
denotes anelastic attenuation rate, x denotes the shortest over 30 km, and oversaturation would occur only when the
distance from a recording station to the fault plane if a fault distance is less than about 10 km if xinto is not used. This term
model is available (otherwise the hypocentral distance), and was retained mainly for ease of model coefficient smoothing
gint denotes geometric attenuation rate. The term gintSL with respect to spectral periods.
used together with gint is the large-distance geometric attenu- Zhao, Zhou, et al. (2015) presents the rock-site factor
ation rate that reduces the geometric attenuation rate over a AmSC I  expS1N . The maximum site amplification ratio
distance of about 50 km. The use of gintSL also leads to a is defined by
negative value for anelastic attenuation rate eintS for all spec-
tral periods. Superscript v indicates association with the vol- EQ-TARGET;temp:intralink-;df7a;313;601 AN max k  AmSC I for SC I sites k  1 7a
canic path. Anelastic attenuation rate eV is applied to the
horizontal distance passing through volcanic zones, denoted
AN max k  AmSC I expSk 
EQ-TARGET;temp:intralink-;df7b;313;569

by xV as presented in figure 3 in Zhao, Zhou, et al. (2016).

Parameter A is the site amplification ratio and contains both for SC II; III; and IV sites k  2; 3; 7; 7b
linear and nonlinear site terms that will be described later.
Random variable ξ is the within-event residual with an aver- in which Sk is the elastic site term, with k  2 for SC II sites,
age value of 0.0 and a standard deviation of σ, referred to as k  3 for SC III sites, and k  4 for SC IV sites for shallow
the within-event standard deviation. Random variable η is the interface earthquakes. For deep events, k  5 for SC II sites,
between-event residual with an average value of 0.0 and a k  6 for SC III sites, and k  7 for SC IV sites. The rock-site
standard deviation τ, referred to as between-event standard term S1N was originally from Zhao, Zhou, et al. (2016) and
deviation. The total residuals are defined in equation (3b). Zhao, Hu, et al. (2015) but was smoothed in the present study.
The distance used for geometric spreading is defined by The nonlinear amplification ratio is given by

EQ-TARGET;temp:intralink-;df4;55;433 ri;j  xinto  xi;j  expc1  c2 Cm  4 EQ-TARGET;temp:intralink-;df8;313;433

loge A  loge AN max 

loge SαMR  β − loge β

− loge Amax  8
mi if mi ≤ Cmax loge SαReffC  β − loge β
Cm  : 5
Cmax if mi > Cmax
EQ-TARGET;temp:intralink-;df5;55;403

 
loge AN max  loge SαReffC  β − loge SF lnβ
EQ-TARGET;temp:intralink-;df9;313;356

Parameter c1 is a regression coefficient determined by Zhao,

SNC  exp
Zhou, et al. (2015). Parameter c2  1:151 was used for all loge Amax 
spectral periods, and the physical base was described by 1
α
Zhao, Zhou, et al. (2016). We introduced a distance constant −β 9
xinto  10:0 km to avoid magnitude–distance oversaturation,
for which the ground motion at the source decreases with SNC
SMR  SReff f 10
increasing magnitude. This aspect was discussed in the study SReffC SR
EQ-TARGET;temp:intralink-;df10;313;288

by Zhao and Rhoades (2014) and Zhao, Zhou, et al. (2016).

Following their studies and the Zhao, Jiang, et al. (2016)
study, we also used a maximum magnitude Cmax in equa-
EQ-TARGET;temp:intralink-;df11;313;258 SReff  SR I mf 11
tion (5) and we selected Cmax  mc . Discussions on the se-
lection of Cmax can be found in Zhao, Zhou, et al. (2016). EQ-TARGET;temp:intralink-;df12;313;230 SReffC  SRC I mf : 12
As discussed earlier, Zhao (2010) found that the attenu-
ation rate for shallow interface earthquakes was larger than Parameters α  2:0 and β  0:6 were used for all periods,
that for deep interface events because the materials in the shal- and Amax , SRC , and I mf are presented in Zhao, Zhou, et al.
low crust close to the interface and the mantle wedge may (2016), and the procedure for deriving equations (8)–(12) is
have different properties. We found that an anelastic attenua- presented by Zhao, Hu, et al. (2015).
tion term was not necessary for deep interface earthquakes. Adopting different elastic site terms for shallow and
The following equation was used for deep interface records: deep events is purely for model term smoothing, and these
terms, which correspond to the same site class, are sta-
loge yi;j   fmintD  gint loge ri;j 
EQ-TARGET;temp:intralink-;df6;55;127

tistically the same. Because some of the site terms from the
 gintDL loge xi;j  200:0  eVint xVi;j 1D model presented by Zhao, Zhou, et al. (2016) and Zhao,
Hu, et al. (2015) were not smoothed with respect to spectral
 γ int  loge A  ξi;j  ηi : 6 periods, adjustment factors fSR presented in Table 2 were
1522 J. X. Zhao, et al.

used to achieve a broadly smoothed spectrum as described by

Zhao, Jiang, et al. (2016). We adopted deamplification ratios
or a rock-site factor AmSC I  expS1N  for rock sites as
described by Zhao, Zhou, et al. (2016) with minor modifi-
cations for smoothing.
Using Abrahamson and Youngs (1992) algorithm, Zhao
and Rhoades (2014), Zhao, Zhou, et al. (2016), and Zhao,
Jiang, et al. (2016) approximately separated the random var-
iable ξ into a within-site component ξS and a between-site
component ηS . The within-site component ξsk;n has a zero
mean and a within-site standard deviation of σ S . The between-
site component ηsk has a zero mean and a between-site stan-
dard deviation of τS . The within-site, between-site, and total
site standard deviations for interface events are presented in
this article. Figure 2. The effect of site information quality—the increase in
Distance xVi;j is the horizontal distance of the volcanic weighted maximum log likelihood (MLL) without the strong-
path calculated from the straight line between the earthquake motion records from stations with an inferred site class. The color
source and a site passing through volcanic zones described in version of this figure is available only in the electronic edition.
figure 3 of Zhao, Zhou, et al. (2016). Zhao, Zhou, et al.
(2016) also described the limits on the minimum and maxi- that from the first model, we can conclude that the measured
mum volcanic distance for xV . shear-wave velocity down to bedrock indeed improves the
model fit. Figure 2 shows that the improvement is significant
at all spectral periods, with the increase in the weighted MLL
Site Information Effect being over 25 at all spectral periods except for 5.0 s, and the
In a manner similar to that used by Zhao, Jiang, et al. largest increase is over 160. Overall, the exclusion of the re-
(2016) and Zhao, Zhou, et al. (2016), we established two sets cords from sites with an inferred site class improves the model
of GMPEs for the interface events with identical functional fit, and we present the model parameters from the GMPEs
forms. We used the weighted MLL described by Zhao, Zhou, based on the second dataset. The improved model fit sug-
et al. (2016) from the two models to identify the effect of gests the importance of measured site shear-wave velocity
excluding the records from sites with an inferred site class. profiles down to engineering bedrock. PGA is plotted at
If the weighted MLL increases significantly after the records 0.02 s spectral period for the convenience of using a loga-
from sites with inferred site class are excluded, compared with rithm scale in spectral period.

Table 2
Adjustment Factors
Site Class Site Class
Number T (s) I II III IV Number T (s) I II III IV

1 PGA 1.0 1.0 1.165 1.0 20 0.35 0.0 0.701 0.473 1.008
2 0.01 1.0 1.0 0.944 1.0 21 0.4 0.0 0.708 0.487 1.007
3 0.02 1.0 1.0 1.012 1.0 22 0.45 0.0 0.737 0.511 0.981
4 0.03 1.0 1.0 1.100 1.000 23 0.5 0.0 0.748 0.536 0.990
5 0.04 1.0 0.843 0.959 0.557 24 0.6 0.0 0.728 0.540 1.016
6 0.05 1.0 0.663 0.889 0.543 25 0.7 0.0 0.634 0.477 1.022
7 0.06 1.0 0.841 0.946 0.574 26 0.8 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.023
8 0.07 1.0 1.029 1.006 0.648 27 0.9 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.997
9 0.08 1.0 1.235 1.065 0.721 28 1.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.948
10 0.09 1.0 1.144 1.093 0.809 29 1.25 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.802
11 0.1 1.0 1.092 1.077 1.015 30 1.5 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
12 0.12 0.0 0.945 1.036 0.972 31 2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
13 0.14 0.0 0.624 0.895 0.967 32 2.5 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
14 0.15 0.0 0.577 0.860 0.963 33 3 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
15 0.16 0.0 0.545 0.822 0.953 34 3.5 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
16 0.18 0.0 0.527 0.743 0.967 35 4 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
17 0.2 0.0 0.546 0.663 1.005 36 4.5 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
18 0.25 0.0 0.596 0.487 1.045 37 5 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
19 0.3 0.0 0.623 0.447 1.035

PGA, peak ground acceleration.

GMPEs for Subduction Interface Earthquakes in Japan
Methodology Used in the Regression Analyses
The same strategy of determining model parameters
from Zhao, Zhou, et al. (2016) for crustal and upper-mantle
events was adopted in the present study. The steps are
summarized below.
1. Derive a set of GMPEs using all terms as presented in
equations (1)–(8) as well as others not presented in this
article, including the magnitude-squared term, the geo-
metric attenuation rate with and without magnitude
dependence, and separate depth terms for shallow and
deep events.
2. Test all model coefficients and delete those that are not
statistically significant.
3. Derive the second model from the second dataset, after
the magnitude-scaling coefficient for large events dint
was determined using the first dataset in step 1.
4. Test each term in equations (1)–(8) in turn, starting from
the term that has the smallest ratio of the mean value over
its standard deviation. If the term is not statistically
significant, this term can be removed.
5. If a term is statistically significant at only a very small
number of spectral periods, then it is set to zero.
6. For a term that is statistically significant at a number of
consecutive spectral periods, we interpolate or extrapo-
late the values of this term using a polynomial function
of loge T. The spectral period for PGA is set as 0.005 s
for the smoothing process.
7. For the linear site terms, we adopted different values for
shallow interface events at some spectral periods from
those for the deep interface model purely to allow the
final model to produce a broadly smoothed spectrum for
shallow interface events.
8. After the model terms were selected, we smoothed γ int
first, and then we used γ int as a constant to carry out a
regression analysis. The second parameter smoothed was
cintD , and we smoothed S  γ int  mi cintD with mi  7:0.
Then the magnitude-scaling term could be calculated from
cintD  S − γ int =mi . Assuming that γ intS was to be
smoothed next, we took the smoothed γ int and cintD as con-
stants and carried out a regression analysis to determine all
other terms. Using the new value for γ intS, we smooth
S  γ intS  γ int  mi cintD with mi  7:0. Then γ intS was
calculated from γ intS  S − cintD mi − γ int . In this manner,
all coefficients in equations (1)–(6) were smoothed except
for the site terms for the shallow interface events, which
were adjusted manually to achieve a visually smoothed
spectrum for each site class.
However, the smoothing of the model terms does not guar-
antee a smoothed spectrum over all spectral periods and
all parameter ranges, especially at the limits of magnitude,
distance, and depth range of the dataset. During the smooth-
ing process, MLL on average did not decrease by more than
1.0 for most terms and periods. After all model parameters
were smoothed, we fitted a linear function of magnitude and
1523
Figure 3. Magnitude-scaling coefficient dint for large events
and the ratio dint =cint . The color version of this figure is available
only in the electronic edition.
fault-top depth to the between-event residuals and a linear
function of magnitude and source distance to the within-
event residuals for each spectral period. A t-test was carried
out on each coefficient in the linear functions to ensure that
the coefficient was not statistically significant at a 5% sig-
nificance level for most terms and a 10% significance level
for the last couple of terms during the smoothing process.
Model Coefficients for the Final GMPE
Figure 3 shows the values of dint and the ratio of dint =cint .
The magnitude-scaling rates for events with an M w > 7:1 are
smaller than those for the smaller events. PGA is plotted at
0.005 s spectral period for the convenience of using a loga-
rithm scale in spectral period. We selected a constant dint
up to 0.6 s, and then dint increases linearly with increasing
spectral periods in a natural logarithm scale. Tables 3–5
present the smoothed coefficients in the model described in
equations (1)–(6), and Table 6 presents the between-event and
within-event standard deviations. Table 4 also presents the
rock-site term S1N from those by Zhao, Zhou, et al. (2016)
with minor adjustment, so as to obtain a visually smoothed
rock-site spectrum.
Figure 4 shows the anelastic attenuation rates for shal-
low interface events and the anelastic attenuation rate that
applies to the volcanic path for all interface events. At short
periods less than 0.3 s, the absolute value for anelastic attenu-
ation rate for volcanic path is larger than that for the shallow
interface event. For spectral periods over 0.3 s, the absolute
value for the anelastic attenuation rate for the shallow inter-
face events is much larger than that for the volcanic path.
Figure 5 presents the coefficients for the linear site terms
for SC II, SC III, and SC IV sites and deep interface events.
The linear site terms for shallow interface events are almost
the same. All linear site terms have a trough at 0.05–0.1 s,
because this spectral period range covers the average site
period of the SC I site, and the exponential of linear site term
expSk  represents the amplification ratios with respect to SC
I sites. The linear site terms for the SC II sites have a maxi-
mum value at around 0.3 s, which is the middle period for SC
1524 J. X. Zhao, et al.

Table 3
Model Parameters
T (s) c1 c2 cintD cintS dint γ intS bint gint

PGA −5.301 1.151 1.0997 1.3148 0.553 −3.8953 0.0200 −2.0559

0.01 −5.288 1.151 1.0985 1.3174 0.553 −3.8953 0.0200 −2.0657
0.02 −5.276 1.151 1.0923 1.3192 0.553 −3.8953 0.0200 −2.1023
0.03 −5.268 1.151 1.1069 1.3410 0.553 −3.8953 0.0207 −2.1923
0.04 −5.263 1.151 1.1158 1.3805 0.553 −3.8953 0.0231 −2.2464
0.05 −5.259 1.151 1.1023 1.4325 0.553 −3.8953 0.0271 −2.2934
0.06 −5.255 1.151 1.0861 1.4624 0.553 −3.8953 0.0297 −2.3117
0.07 −5.253 1.151 1.0729 1.4712 0.553 −3.8953 0.0321 −2.3110
0.08 −5.250 1.151 1.0638 1.4643 0.553 −3.8946 0.0320 −2.2878
0.09 −5.248 1.151 1.0586 1.4470 0.553 −3.9018 0.0297 −2.2468
0.10 −5.246 1.151 1.0567 1.4232 0.553 −3.9077 0.0279 −2.2041
0.12 −5.243 1.151 1.0605 1.3683 0.553 −3.9164 0.0247 −2.1201
0.14 −5.240 1.151 1.0714 1.3156 0.553 −3.9227 0.0212 −2.0434
0.15 −5.239 1.151 1.0786 1.2928 0.553 −3.9253 0.0195 −2.0109
0.16 −5.237 1.151 1.0866 1.2732 0.553 −3.9275 0.0179 −1.9830
0.18 −5.235 1.151 1.1047 1.2483 0.553 −3.9313 0.0151 −1.9461
0.20 −5.233 1.151 1.1244 1.2372 0.553 −3.9345 0.0126 −1.9270
0.25 −5.229 1.151 1.1769 1.2239 0.553 −3.9407 0.0077 −1.8988
0.30 −5.226 1.151 1.2297 1.2285 0.553 −3.9455 0.0044 −1.8914
0.35 −5.223 1.151 1.2806 1.2422 0.553 −3.9494 0.0022 −1.8930
0.40 −5.221 1.151 1.3287 1.2608 0.553 −3.9527 0.0000 −1.8953
0.45 −5.218 1.151 1.3739 1.2819 0.553 −3.9556 0.0000 −1.9058
0.50 −5.216 1.151 1.4163 1.3043 0.553 −3.9580 0.0000 −1.9147
0.60 −5.213 1.151 1.4931 1.3502 0.553 −3.9618 0.0000 −1.9274
0.70 −5.210 1.151 1.5607 1.3952 0.560 −3.9648 0.0000 −1.9345
0.80 −5.208 1.151 1.6206 1.4382 0.580 −3.9673 0.0000 −1.9374
0.90 −5.206 1.151 1.6739 1.4788 0.602 −3.9696 0.0000 −1.9373
1.00 −5.204 1.151 1.7217 1.5169 0.622 −3.9720 0.0000 −1.9351
1.25 −5.200 1.151 1.8219 1.6015 0.667 −3.9795 0.0000 −1.9247
1.50 −5.196 1.151 1.9008 1.6728 0.705 −3.9905 0.0000 −1.9119
2.00 −5.191 1.151 2.0148 1.7837 0.768 −4.0265 0.0000 −1.8886
2.50 −5.187 1.151 2.0889 1.8624 0.820 −4.0830 0.0000 −1.8725
3.00 −5.183 1.151 2.1357 1.9171 0.863 −4.1594 0.0000 −1.8635
3.50 −5.181 1.151 2.1625 1.9532 0.902 −4.2542 0.0000 −1.8597
4.00 −5.178 1.151 2.1739 1.9745 0.935 −4.3658 0.0000 −1.8595
4.50 −5.176 1.151 2.1730 1.9836 0.966 −4.4927 0.0000 −1.8615
5.00 −5.174 1.151 2.1620 1.9826 0.994 −4.6331 0.0000 −1.8645

II sites. The linear site terms for the SC III site have a maxi-
mum value at about 0.5 s, which is also the middle period for
SC III sites, whereas the linear site term for SC IV sites is
nearly constant in a 0.8–2.5 s period range before it decreases
with increasing spectral periods.
Ⓔ Figures S1–S14, available in the electronic supple-
ment to this article, show the between-event and within-event
residuals from the final model. Statistical tests were per-
formed to make sure that the slope of the trend lines and the
average residuals are not statistically significant.
Figure 6 shows the between-event, within-event, and to-
tal standard deviations. PGA has the smallest total standard
deviation of 0.669, and the largest total standard is 0.797 at
0.1 s. On average, the within-event standard deviations are
about 1.54 times the between-event standard deviations.
Figure 6 also shows the smoothed standard deviations from
the Abrahamson et al. (2016) study. Figure 7a compares the
within-event and total standard deviations from the present
study with those from the Abrahamson et al. (2016) study
(digitized from their fig. 6). The between-event standard de-
viations of the present study are smaller than those from
Abrahamson et al. (2016) at most spectral periods. Figure 7a
also shows that the total standard deviations in the present
study are larger than those from the Abrahamson et al.
(2016) study in a 0.6–2.5 s spectral period range, with the
largest difference being about 13% at 1.0 s spectral periods,
whereas the total standard deviations from the present study
are smaller than those from Abrahamson et al. (2016) at the
other periods. Figure 7b shows that the within-event standard
deviations from the Abrahamson et al. (2016) study are
smaller than those of the present study in a 0.15–2.5 s spec-
tral period range, with the largest difference being 13% at
1.0 s. It is possible that the differences in this period band
are caused by using site classes as the site term in the present
study, whereas Abrahamson et al. (2016) used V S30 , a shear-
wave travel-time averaged shear-wave velocity of top 30 m
soils, as the site term. However, this cannot be confirmed
without comparing the between-site standard deviations
GMPEs for Subduction Interface Earthquakes in Japan 1525

Table 4
Model Parameters
T (s) gintLD gintLS eVint eintS γ int Rock-Site Factor

PGA 0.5454 1.1336 −0.01123 −0.00628 −4.4986 1.358

0.01 0.5498 1.1336 −0.01125 −0.00625 −4.4589 1.247
0.02 0.5617 1.1336 −0.01127 −0.00616 −4.2581 1.149
0.03 0.5789 1.1336 −0.01158 −0.00572 −3.9180 1.097
0.04 0.4933 0.9881 −0.01203 −0.00532 −3.1142 1.065
0.05 0.4910 0.9044 −0.01256 −0.00503 −2.7604 1.037
0.06 0.5085 0.8877 −0.01312 −0.00528 −2.6409 1.038
0.07 0.5275 0.9049 −0.01359 −0.00569 −2.6562 1.050
0.08 0.5460 0.9421 −0.01382 −0.00619 −2.7527 1.103
0.09 0.5631 0.9865 −0.01393 −0.00673 −2.8992 1.192
0.10 0.5762 1.0355 −0.01395 −0.00718 −3.0770 1.277
0.12 0.5926 1.1353 −0.01381 −0.00793 −3.4828 1.400
0.14 0.6098 1.2342 −0.01351 −0.00853 −3.9161 1.525
0.15 0.6196 1.2813 −0.01333 −0.00879 −4.1348 1.578
0.16 0.6308 1.3266 −0.01312 −0.00902 −4.3524 1.625
0.18 0.6620 1.4113 −0.01269 −0.00927 −4.7803 1.705
0.20 0.6998 1.4885 −0.01223 −0.00942 −5.1944 1.768
0.25 0.7845 1.6521 −0.01108 −0.00959 −6.1580 1.868
0.30 0.8594 1.7813 −0.00998 −0.00952 −7.0200 1.917
0.35 0.9234 1.8844 −0.00898 −0.00933 −7.7915 1.938
0.40 0.9801 1.9676 −0.00808 −0.00911 −8.4955 1.944
0.45 1.0222 2.0355 −0.00727 −0.00888 −9.1135 1.945
0.50 1.0587 2.0914 −0.00656 −0.00866 −9.6852 1.942
0.60 1.1180 2.1764 −0.00534 −0.00824 −10.6895 1.928
0.70 1.1630 2.2360 −0.00437 −0.00787 −11.5460 1.911
0.80 1.1973 2.2783 −0.00359 −0.00755 −12.2872 1.892
0.90 1.2236 2.3085 −0.00296 −0.00726 −12.9363 1.873
1.00 1.2437 2.3299 −0.00244 −0.00700 −13.5100 1.853
1.25 1.2725 2.3585 −0.00153 −0.00644 −14.6903 1.799
1.50 1.2854 2.3665 −0.00097 −0.00597 −15.6030 1.740
2.00 1.2883 2.3554 −0.00043 −0.00518 −16.9001 1.620
2.50 1.2773 2.3311 −0.00023 −0.00451 −17.7366 1.508
3.00 1.2605 2.3041 −0.00016 −0.00393 −18.2714 1.416
3.50 1.2411 2.2779 0.0 −0.00344 −18.5926 1.347
4.00 1.2203 2.2537 0.0 −0.00302 −18.7547 1.304
4.50 1.1986 2.2316 0.0 −0.00267 −18.7935 1.285
5.00 1.1763 2.2115 0.0 −0.00240 −18.7339 1.267

from the two models. The differences can also be caused by
using different datasets.
Table 5 presents the within-site and between-site standard
deviations. Figure 8a shows the between-site standard devia-
tions, and Figure 8b shows the within-site standard deviations.
At short periods up to 0.3 s, the between-site standard devia-
tions for SC I and SC II sites are considerably larger than those
from the other two site classes. At long periods over 0.7 s, SC
IV sites have the largest between-site standard deviations. In
general, the differences in the between-site standard deviations
vary significantly from one site class to another. The within-
site standard deviations in Figure 8b are similar for all site
classes and do not vary with spectral periods as much as the
between-site standard deviations do. Further improvement in
site effect modeling may lead to a reduction in the between-
site standard deviations.
Figure 9 compares the total site standard deviations from
four site classes with the within-event standard deviations.
SC III sites have the smallest standard deviations at most
periods, and SC IV sites have the largest standard deviations
at long periods. The total site standard deviations appear
to have the largest value at the average site period of each
site class.
The between-event residuals show that the overall mod-
eling for the 2011 Mw 9.0 Tohoku earthquake and the 2003
Mw 8.3 off Tokachi-Oki earthquake is reasonable (see Ⓔ
Figs. S1–S14); this result validates the selected bilinear mag-
nitude scaling for the interface events. Figure 10 shows the
residual factor of the between-event residuals, exp−ηi , for
each spectral period together with the factor for mean ±1
between-event standard deviation τ, that is, exp
τ for
these two great subduction interface earthquakes. On average
across all spectral periods, the response spectra from the
2003 Mw 8.3 Tokachi-Oki earthquake underestimated by a
factor of 0.841, and the long-period spectrum at 5.0 s was
underestimated significantly, exceeding a mean minus one
between-event standard deviation. For the 2011 M w 9.0 To-
hoku earthquake, the spectra on average were overestimated
1526 J. X. Zhao, et al.

Table 5
Site Terms for Deep Subduction Events and Standard Deviations
T (s) S2 S3 S4 S5 S6 S7 σ τ σT

PGA 0.3129 −0.0043 0.2284 0.3129 −0.0043 0.2284 0.553 0.378 0.670
0.01 0.3085 −0.0112 0.2231 0.3085 −0.0112 0.2231 0.553 0.377 0.670
0.02 0.2930 −0.0217 0.2089 0.2930 −0.0217 0.2089 0.553 0.383 0.672
0.03 0.2287 −0.1129 0.1331 0.2287 −0.0829 0.1631 0.554 0.397 0.682
0.04 0.1632 −0.1887 0.0696 0.1632 −0.1887 0.0596 0.564 0.428 0.708
0.05 0.1213 −0.2283 0.0285 0.1213 −0.2283 0.0085 0.569 0.463 0.734
0.06 0.1235 −0.2192 0.0007 0.1235 −0.2192 0.0007 0.583 0.487 0.759
0.07 0.1397 −0.1901 −0.0095 0.1397 −0.1901 0.0055 0.602 0.501 0.783
0.08 0.1639 −0.1550 −0.0049 0.1639 −0.1550 0.0141 0.614 0.501 0.793
0.09 0.2050 −0.1125 0.0305 0.2050 −0.1125 0.0405 0.625 0.495 0.797
0.10 0.2445 −0.0751 0.0608 0.2445 −0.0751 0.0708 0.637 0.478 0.796
0.12 0.3228 0.0150 0.1423 0.3228 0.0150 0.1403 0.646 0.453 0.789
0.14 0.4012 0.0970 0.2270 0.4012 0.0970 0.2020 0.654 0.412 0.773
0.15 0.4362 0.1459 0.2576 0.4362 0.1359 0.2326 0.659 0.404 0.773
0.16 0.4674 0.1879 0.3075 0.4674 0.1729 0.2625 0.664 0.398 0.774
0.18 0.5120 0.2515 0.3597 0.5120 0.2415 0.3197 0.672 0.387 0.776
0.20 0.5393 0.3030 0.4031 0.5393 0.3030 0.3731 0.678 0.382 0.778
0.25 0.5860 0.4269 0.5077 0.5860 0.4269 0.4877 0.659 0.365 0.753
0.30 0.6047 0.5162 0.5778 0.6047 0.5162 0.5778 0.640 0.348 0.729
0.35 0.6064 0.5695 0.6382 0.6064 0.5795 0.6482 0.634 0.360 0.729
0.40 0.6028 0.6237 0.7032 0.6028 0.6337 0.7132 0.627 0.354 0.720
0.45 0.5804 0.6581 0.7508 0.5804 0.6581 0.7508 0.620 0.363 0.719
0.50 0.5569 0.6867 0.7938 0.5569 0.6867 0.7938 0.612 0.364 0.712
0.60 0.5097 0.7122 0.8495 0.5097 0.7122 0.8495 0.612 0.379 0.720
0.70 0.4650 0.7124 0.8798 0.4650 0.7124 0.8798 0.624 0.393 0.738
0.80 0.4244 0.6994 0.8954 0.4244 0.6994 0.8954 0.628 0.396 0.742
0.90 0.3884 0.6800 0.9026 0.3884 0.6800 0.9026 0.628 0.397 0.743
1.00 0.3570 0.6583 0.9053 0.3570 0.6583 0.9053 0.632 0.404 0.750
1.25 0.2967 0.6193 0.9179 0.2967 0.6193 0.9179 0.635 0.404 0.752
1.50 0.2579 0.5829 0.9213 0.2579 0.5829 0.9213 0.643 0.392 0.753
2.00 0.2226 0.5262 0.9171 0.2226 0.5262 0.9171 0.634 0.382 0.741
2.50 0.2184 0.4872 0.9055 0.2184 0.4872 0.9055 0.619 0.393 0.733
3.00 0.2160 0.4570 0.8867 0.2160 0.4570 0.8867 0.599 0.385 0.712
3.50 0.2160 0.4281 0.8588 0.2160 0.4281 0.8588 0.580 0.376 0.692
4.00 0.2160 0.3952 0.8203 0.2160 0.3952 0.8203 0.568 0.377 0.682
4.50 0.2160 0.3549 0.7699 0.2160 0.3549 0.7699 0.552 0.376 0.668
5.00 0.2160 0.3047 0.7071 0.2160 0.3047 0.7071 0.563 0.374 0.676

by about 10% for all spectral periods, and this is a fraction of
the mean
τ factor.
Figure 11a shows the within-event residuals for all
records from the Tohoku event, and the trend line suggests
that the predicted PGAs within a distance of 100 km were
underestimated. The trend line fitted to the residuals is a
second-order polynomial of source distance, and the trend line
can be approximated by the following conventional attenua-
tion function
EQ-TARGET;temp:intralink-;df13;55;184 loge yj   g loge rj   exj  c;
in which g is the geometric attenuation coefficient, e is the
anelastic attenuation coefficient, and c is a constant. The
biased residuals distribution within a distance range of 130 km
can be corrected by equation (13), with g  −0:280, e  0:0,
and c  1:43. This means that the anelastic attenuation for
the shallow interface events is adequate for this earthquake
if equation (13) is used. Figure 11b shows the residuals
presented in Figure 11a, but the trend line is a third-order
polynomial of source distance. Clearly, the distribution is
biased at distances within about 70 km. The trend line is very
similar to those fitted to the shallow crustal events in the Zhao
(2010) study, and the biased distribution was attributed to the
Moho reflection effect in that study. The ground motion from a
shallow interface event (within 25 km) is likely to be affected
by Moho reflection, at least in theory. The trend lines in
Figure 11b cannot be described by equation (13) adequately,
and the multisegmented linear geometric attenuation functions
similar to that used by Zhao (2010) can be used to eliminate
13
the bias.
For NGA models including Abrahamson and Silva
(2008), Boore and Atkinson (2008), Campbell and Bozorgnia
(2008), and Chiou and Youngs (2008), magnitude-dependent
standard deviations were used, and both between- and within-
event standard deviations decrease with increasing earthquake
magnitude. The studies by Zhao, Zhou, et al. (2016) for
shallow crustal and upper-mantle events and Zhao, Jiang, et al.
(2016) for subduction slab events found that standard
GMPEs for Subduction Interface Earthquakes in Japan 1527

Figure 5. Comparison of elastic site terms for three site classes

Figure 4. Comparison of anelastic attenuation rate with that for in the deep interface model. The color version of this figure is avail-
volcanic path plotted as a percentage. The color version of this fig- able only in the electronic edition.
ure is available only in the electronic edition.

Table 6
Within-Site and Between-Site Standard Deviations for Subduction Interface Earthquakes
SC I SC II SC III SC IV
Period (s) σS τS σ ST σS τS σ ST σS τS σ ST σS τS σ ST

PGA 0.388 0.419 0.571 0.421 0.424 0.597 0.393 0.376 0.544 0.458 0.346 0.574
0.01 0.388 0.420 0.571 0.421 0.424 0.598 0.393 0.377 0.545 0.416 0.348 0.543
0.02 0.386 0.425 0.574 0.420 0.425 0.598 0.394 0.376 0.544 0.415 0.352 0.544
0.03 0.383 0.444 0.586 0.420 0.422 0.595 0.397 0.386 0.553 0.415 0.355 0.546
0.04 0.386 0.474 0.611 0.420 0.434 0.604 0.394 0.393 0.557 0.421 0.362 0.555
0.05 0.386 0.486 0.620 0.419 0.440 0.608 0.399 0.384 0.554 0.419 0.375 0.562
0.06 0.386 0.500 0.632 0.419 0.449 0.614 0.398 0.379 0.550 0.420 0.388 0.571
0.07 0.389 0.531 0.658 0.420 0.466 0.628 0.412 0.377 0.558 0.420 0.410 0.587
0.08 0.397 0.553 0.681 0.424 0.489 0.647 0.406 0.374 0.552 0.419 0.416 0.591
0.09 0.402 0.559 0.688 0.425 0.521 0.672 0.406 0.381 0.557 0.419 0.435 0.604
0.1 0.406 0.562 0.693 0.424 0.540 0.687 0.403 0.409 0.574 0.423 0.469 0.632
0.12 0.411 0.564 0.697 0.424 0.537 0.684 0.415 0.480 0.635 0.426 0.517 0.670
0.14 0.413 0.556 0.692 0.439 0.560 0.712 0.407 0.440 0.599 0.438 0.507 0.670
0.15 0.414 0.552 0.690 0.440 0.574 0.724 0.410 0.427 0.592 0.430 0.504 0.663
0.16 0.416 0.548 0.688 0.446 0.573 0.726 0.404 0.429 0.589 0.437 0.496 0.661
0.18 0.423 0.534 0.681 0.454 0.557 0.719 0.411 0.436 0.600 0.455 0.488 0.667
0.2 0.426 0.528 0.679 0.469 0.532 0.710 0.414 0.437 0.602 0.456 0.481 0.663
0.25 0.424 0.493 0.650 0.468 0.551 0.723 0.410 0.398 0.572 0.452 0.448 0.637
0.3 0.422 0.471 0.632 0.473 0.509 0.695 0.398 0.421 0.579 0.439 0.442 0.623
0.35 0.413 0.474 0.629 0.481 0.485 0.683 0.400 0.457 0.607 0.432 0.442 0.618
0.4 0.413 0.449 0.610 0.470 0.496 0.683 0.393 0.463 0.607 0.423 0.435 0.607
0.45 0.419 0.423 0.595 0.464 0.495 0.679 0.389 0.447 0.593 0.419 0.418 0.592
0.5 0.409 0.415 0.583 0.457 0.473 0.658 0.383 0.435 0.579 0.420 0.432 0.603
0.6 0.395 0.419 0.576 0.450 0.450 0.636 0.385 0.434 0.580 0.403 0.442 0.598
0.7 0.395 0.429 0.583 0.442 0.454 0.634 0.385 0.448 0.591 0.412 0.454 0.613
0.8 0.392 0.427 0.580 0.444 0.448 0.631 0.393 0.440 0.590 0.417 0.468 0.627
0.9 0.395 0.433 0.586 0.434 0.446 0.622 0.392 0.445 0.593 0.407 0.485 0.633
1 0.402 0.453 0.606 0.428 0.445 0.617 0.394 0.422 0.578 0.406 0.498 0.642
1.25 0.408 0.457 0.613 0.425 0.457 0.624 0.402 0.428 0.587 0.419 0.507 0.657
1.5 0.409 0.464 0.619 0.441 0.448 0.628 0.421 0.434 0.604 0.415 0.505 0.653
2 0.415 0.464 0.623 0.437 0.458 0.633 0.412 0.470 0.625 0.409 0.524 0.665
2.5 0.406 0.441 0.599 0.438 0.443 0.623 0.419 0.446 0.612 0.421 0.529 0.676
3 0.397 0.412 0.572 0.440 0.441 0.623 0.399 0.400 0.565 0.414 0.524 0.668
3.5 0.388 0.394 0.553 0.435 0.424 0.608 0.403 0.353 0.536 0.407 0.535 0.672
4 0.390 0.376 0.541 0.442 0.409 0.603 0.398 0.365 0.540 0.396 0.542 0.671
4.5 0.384 0.363 0.528 0.441 0.393 0.591 0.384 0.349 0.519 0.380 0.530 0.652
5 0.394 0.346 0.525 0.461 0.408 0.615 0.375 0.293 0.476 0.371 0.514 0.633
1528
Figure 6. Variation of within-event, between-event, and total
standard deviations with spectral period. The horizontal lines are
the smoothed standard deviations from the Abrahamson et al.
(2016) study. The color version of this figure is available only in
the electronic edition.
Figure 7. Comparison of (a) between-event and total standard
deviations and (b) within-event standard deviations from the present
study and the Abrahamson et al. (2016) study. The color version of
this figure is available only in the electronic edition.
deviations do not vary with magnitude in a systematic manner.
Figure 12 shows the standard deviations of the residuals in
each magnitude bin of 0.5 magnitude units. For both types of
residuals, the standard deviations tend to increase with increas-
ing magnitude up to 7, and then decrease. For between-event
residuals, the last magnitude bin has all events with a magni-
J. X. Zhao, et al.
Figure 8. Comparison of (a) between-site and (b) within-site
standard deviations estimated from within-event residuals for four
site classes. The color version of this figure is available only in the
electronic edition.
Figure 9. Comparison of total site standard deviations, esti-
mated from within-event residuals, with the within-event standard
deviations. The color version of this figure is available only in the
electronic edition.
tude over 7.0, and for within-event residuals, each of the last
two magnitude bins has only one event. Figure 12 does not
support an assumption that standard deviations decrease with
increasing magnitude, and we assume magnitude-independent
standard deviations in this study. Also the Abrahamson et al.
(2016) model for global subduction events adopted magni-
tude-independent standard deviations.
Predicted Response Spectra
Though each model parameter has been smoothed with
respect to the logarithm of spectral periods, the model does
GMPEs for Subduction Interface Earthquakes in Japan
Figure 10. Residual factors, the exponential of the negative
between-event residual, for the two largest subduction interface
events, together with the factors for mean
τ. When the residual
factor is larger than 1.0, the spectrum is overestimated, and when
the residual factor is less than 1.0, the spectrum is underestimated,
on average. The color version of this figure is available only in the
electronic edition.
Figure 11. Distribution of peak ground acceleration (PGA) re-
siduals with respect to source distance (a) with a trend line having a
second-order polynomial of source distance and (b) with a trend line
having a third-order polynomial. The color version of this figure is
available only in the electronic edition.
not provide a smoothed spectrum at all magnitude and dis-
tance ranges. The adjustment factors for the nonlinear soil
site spectra lead to a broadly smoothed nonlinear spectrum.
Next, we present the predicted spectra for various magnitude,
fault depth, and source distance ranges.
1529
Figure 12. Variation of standard deviation for residuals in each
magnitude bin for (a) between-event residuals and (b) within-event
residuals. The color version of this figure is available only in the
electronic edition.
Figure 13. Predicted rock-site spectra for shallow interface
events with Mw 5–9 and a depth of 15.0 km at a source distance
of 20.0 km. The color version of this figure is available only in
the electronic edition.
Figure 13 shows the rock-site spectra from events with a
magnitude of 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 at a source distance of 20 km
and a fault-top depth of 15 km. The predicted rock-site PGA
is 0:053g from Mw 5, 0:16g from M w 6, 0:344g from M w 7,
0:59g from M w 8, and 1:03g from Mw 9 events. Among the
periods that have been modeled, the peak rock-site spectrum
is at a spectral period of 0.08 s. The differences between the
spectra from an M w 8 event and the spectra from an M w 7
1530
Figure 14. Predicted spectra for shallow interface events with
Mw 5–9 and a depth of 15.0 km at a source distance of 20.0 km for
(a) an SC I site and (b) an SC II site. The color version of this figure
is available only in the electronic edition.
event, or between the spectra from an M w 9 event and M w 8
event, are much smaller than those between the spectra from
Mw 6 and Mw 5 events, because of the marked reduction in
magnitude scaling for events with an M w ≥ 7:1.
Figure 14a shows the predicted spectra for SC I sites,
and the PGA varies from 0:072g for an M w 5.0 event to 1:38g
for an M w 9.0 event, with a fault-top depth of 15 km at a
source distance of 20 km. The PGA is 0:22g for an Mw 6.0
event, 0:466g for an M w 7.0 event, and 0:8g for an M w 8.0
event. The peak SC I spectrum is at about 0.12 s. Figure 14b
shows that, for SC II sites, the PGA is 0:099g for an M w 5.0
event, 0:294g for an M w 6.0 event, 0:608g for an M w 7.0
event, 0:965g for an M w 8.0 event, and 1:41g for an M w 9.0
event. For SC III sites, the PGA is 0:072g for an Mw 5.0 event
and increases to 0:996g for an M w 9.0 event, as shown in
Figure 15a. The PGA is 0:214g for an M w 6.0 event,
0:443g for an Mw 7.0 event, and 0:7g for an M w 8.0 event.
For SC IV sites, an M w 5.0 event has a PGA of 0:090g and an
Mw 9.0 event has a PGA of 0:859g, as shown in Figure 15b.
Our model appears to predict a significantly larger spectrum
for an M w 9.0 event compared with those by the Abrahamson
et al. (2016) GMPE (their fig. 10). Among the records from
the M w 9.0 event, five records have a PGA over 1:0g, at
J. X. Zhao, et al.
Figure 15. Predicted spectra for shallow interface events with
Mw 5–9 and a depth of 15.0 km at a source distance of 20.0 km for
(a) an SC III site and (b) an SC IV site. The color version of this
figure is available only in the electronic edition.
source distances in a 49–83 km range at SC I and SC II sites,
with the largest value being 1:88g. Judging from the residual
distribution in Figures 10 and 11a, the PGAs from the M w 9.0
event, at a source distance of 20 km that is the closest dis-
tance for any subduction zone, are not overestimated by the
model in the present study.
Figure 16 compares the spectra from an Mw 7.0 event,
with a fault depth of 15 km and at a source distance of
20.0 km for rock sites and four soil site classes. The PGA
is 0:34g for rock site, 0:47g for SC I sites, 0:61g for SC
II sites, 0:44g for SC III sites, and 0:52g for SC IV sites.
The short-period spectra for SC III and SC IV sites are gen-
erally smaller than the SC II spectra due to nonlinear site
terms. The SC III and SC IV spectra are less than the rock
spectrum in the 0.04–0.09 s period range, a result of nonlin-
ear site terms. At short periods up to 0.3 s, SC II sites have
the largest spectrum.
Figure 17a shows the spectra from deep interface events
with a depth of 26 km and at a distance of 30 km, from an SC
IV site for four magnitude units. The PGA is 0:052g for an
Mw 5.0 event, 0:13g for an M w 6.0 event, 0:25g for an
Mw 7.0 event, and 0:41g for an M w 8.0 event. Figure 17b
shows the spectra for rock and SC I spectra, the SC IV
GMPEs for Subduction Interface Earthquakes in Japan
Figure 16. Predicted spectra for an interface event with Mw 7.0
and a depth of 15.0 km at a source distance of 20.0 km for all site
classes. The color version of this figure is available only in the elec-
tronic edition.
nonlinear spectrum, and the SC IV elastic spectrum from an
Mw 9.0 event with a fault depth of 26 km at a source distance
of 30 km. The PGA is 0:451g for a rock site, 0:611g for an
SC I site, 0:77g for elastic soil site spectrum, and 0:63g for
nonlinear SC IV site spectrum. The nonlinear SC IV site
spectrum is markedly smaller than the elastic spectrum for
spectral periods up to about 0.6 s. The spectra for rock site
and SC I sites have a sag centered at about 0.5 s for events
with an M w ≥ 7:0. We attempted eliminating the sag, but the
distribution of residuals is severely biased, and we do not
have any plausible physical explanation for this problem,
apart from that we do not have any record from an M w 9
event in the dataset for deep interface events.
Figure 18 shows the attenuation of PGA and spectrum at
0.5 s with a magnitude of 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9, within a 25–
320 km source distance range at a fault depth of 20 km
for SC IV sites. The fault depth is 14 km for the M w 9 event,
similar to the depth of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake. These
figures clearly show the reduced magnitude scaling for
events with M w > 7:0. The reduced attenuation with distance
up to 40 km for the M w 9 event is caused mainly by the non-
linear site term for PGA as shown in Figure 18a and the spec-
trum at 0.5 s as shown in Figure 18b. Figure 19 shows the
attenuation of spectra at 1.0 and 3.0 s spectral periods, and
again the magnitude-scaling rates for large events are signifi-
cantly less than those for events with an Mw up to 7.1.
Figure 20 shows the effect of volcanic path on the pre-
dicted response spectra for a shallow interface event with an
Mw 7.0 at a source distance of 60 km for an SC I site. The
PGA is reduced from 0:13g to 0:11g at a volcanic distance of
20 km, 0:085g at 40 km, and 0:068g at 60 km.
Discussion and Conclusions
We presented a set of GMPEs based on the strong-
motion records from subduction interface earthquakes in
1531
Figure 17. Predicted SC IV spectra for (a) a deep interface
event with a depth of 26.0 km and a source distance of 30.0 km
for four magnitudes, and (b) the predicted spectra for an M w 9 event
on rock, SC I and SC IV sites. Note that significant soil nonlinear
response leads to moderate reduction of the elastic soil site spectrum
in the nonlinear spectrum. The color version of this figure is avail-
able only in the electronic edition.
Japan. These models used simple geometric attenuation func-
tions, and site classes based on site periods were used as
the site terms to model both elastic and nonlinear site effects.
The nonlinear soil site terms developed by Zhao, Zhou, et al.
(2015) and Zhao, Zhou, et al. (2016) were used, and a set of
modification factors were adopted so that the predicted non-
linear spectrum is broadly smoothed with respect to spectral
period.
Our models adopted a bilinear magnitude-scaling func-
tion hinged at Mw 7.1, the same as for Zhao, Zhou, et al.
(2016) for shallow crustal and upper-mantle events and for
Zhao, Jiang, et al. (2016) for subduction slab events. The
coefficients for the magnitude term for events with an
Mw > 7:1 are much smaller than those for events with
Mw < 7:1. The magnitude-scaling rate for the large events
was derived from a dataset including all strong-motion re-
cords since 1968.
For the records before 1996, almost all site classes were
inferred from the response spectral ratio between the H/V
components by Zhao, Irikura, et al. (2006) or from geological/
geotechnical descriptions of the surface materials. We tested
1532 J. X. Zhao, et al.

Figure 18. Attenuation for predicted response spectra for five
magnitude units, a fault-top depth of 20 km, and at SC IV sites for
(a) PGA and (b) 0.5 s spectral acceleration. The fault-top depth is
14 km for the Mw 9 event. The color version of this figure is avail-
able only in the electronic edition.
Figure 19. Attenuation for predicted response spectra for five
magnitudes, a fault-top depth of 20 km, and SC IV sites for periods
of (a) 1.0 s and (b) 3.0 s. The color version of this figure is available
only in the electronic edition.

the effect of site information quality. Similar to the GMPEs

developed for shallow crustal and upper-mantle events by
Zhao, Zhou, et al. (2016) and for subduction slab events
by Zhao, Jiang, et al. (2016), we found that the goodness-
of-fit parameter of the GMPEs for subduction interface (re-
ferred to as interface) events improved significantly for all
spectral periods after excluding the records from sites with
an inferred site class. The model coefficients presented in this
article were derived based on records from stations with a
measured shear-wave velocity profile down to engineering
bedrock.
The effect of volcanoes on the attenuation of seismic
waves was modeled by applying an anelastic attenuation rate
to the horizontal portion of a straight-line distance (the clos-
est distance) between the fault plane and the recording sta-
tion that passes through the assumed low-Q zones around the Figure 20. Predicted SC I response spectra from an M w 7.0
active volcanoes. Our approach to the modeling of volcanic shallow interface event with a depth of 20 km, and at a source dis-
zones can approximately model the wave propagation path tance of 60 km for four travel distances of 0, 20, 40, and 60 km
within volcanic zones. The color version of this figure is available
along the volcanic front but within the volcanic zone in the only in the electronic edition.
western side of the volcanic front, whereas the binary terms
in the Abrahamson et al. (2016) and Boore et al. (2009)
model the effect of volcanic path across the volcanic front. geometric attenuation rate was used for the deep interface
We found that anelastic attenuation rate is not necessary events, the anelastic attenuation rate for these events is either
for deep interface events with a fault-top depth over 25 km, very small or positive. A plausible explanation is that the
similar to the findings by Zhao (2010). Even if a separate materials in the mantle wedge have a relatively high Q value
GMPEs for Subduction Interface Earthquakes in Japan
compared with the materials in the crustal region close to the
subduction trench.
We separated the within-event residuals into between-
site and within-site residuals using an approximate random
effects model. We found that the between-site standard de-
viations varied significantly with spectral period and among
the site classes, whereas the within-site standard deviations
are more or less constant. Between-site standard deviation
tends to be large at the average site period of each site class.
Similar to the Zhao, Zhou, et al. (2016) model for shal-
low crustal and upper-mantle earthquakes, the discontinuity
at the boundaries between shallow and deep interface
events leads to different predicted spectra for events at the
depth boundary. For example, the predicted spectrum from
an interface earthquake with a depth slightly smaller than
25 km (shallow interface events) would differ from that cal-
culated for a deep interface earthquake with a depth slightly
larger than 25 km at the same source distance for the same
site class. We attempted to use continuous variables to
model all the observed differences, but it is almost impos-
sible to derive a smoothed spectrum with respect to spectral
periods for most magnitude and source distance ranges.
Even if it can be done, it is arguable how accurately the
boundaries, such as the interface between the mantle wedge
and the subducting plate, can be known. Another problem is
the uncertainty associated with earthquake classification,
especially the assumption of a depth tolerance of 5 km
above or below the subduction interface for defining sub-
duction interface events (Zhao, Zhou, et al., 2015). We rec-
ommend that, for an event located at a boundary, the user
takes the averaged ground motion of the models on either
side of the boundary. This is thought to be a reasonable ap-
proach, considering the depth error range associated with
the event classification.
Data and Resources
The strong-motion records are from K-NET and KiK-
net, administered by the National Research Institute for Earth
Science and Disaster Prevention of Japan (http://www.
kyoshin.bosai.go.jp/, last accessed July 2015). A small num-
ber of records are from the Port and Airport (Port and Harbour)
Research Institute. A number of rock-site strong-motion re-
cords are from the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research
Center (PEER) strong-motion database (http://peer.berkeley.
edu/smcat/, last accessed July 2015).
Acknowledgments
The work reported here is partially supported by research grants from
the National Science Foundation of China (51278432) and the Southwest
Jiaotong University (SWJTU12ZT04), and by a New Zealand Earthquake
Commission 2010 Biennial Research Grant. At an early stage (2011), sup-
port was received from the New Zealand Foundation for Research Science
and Technology, New Zealand Hazards Platform Contract C05X0907. The
authors would like to thank Jim Cousins and Chris Van Houtte of GNS
Science for their review of this article. We would like to thank Kimiyuki
Asano from Disaster Prevention Institute (DPRI), Kyoto University for
1533
supplying the fault model parameters for a number of earthquakes, and
Changjiang Wu from Japan for assistance with the Japan Meteorological
Agency (JMA) catalog. Finally, we would like to thank Eric Thompson
and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive review comments.
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Sichuan, China Manuscript received 30 January 2015;
(J.X.Z., X.L., F.J., H.X., M.Z., R.H., Y.Z.) Published Online 12 July 2016