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A New Seismic Zonation for Morocco based on probabilistic seismic hazard

assessment

Conference Paper · September 2010

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 ESC2010 6-10 September 2010, Montpellier, France

A NEW SEISMIC ZONATION FOR MOROCCO BASED ON PROBABILISTIC SEISMIC

HAZARD ASSESSMENT

CARBON David1, Christophe MARTIN2 ; Christophe CLEMENT3 ; BOUCETA Meriem4 ; AÏT BRAHIM
Lahcen5 ; TADILI Ben Aissa6 ;; COMBES Philippe7 ; SECANELL Ramon8 ; ABDELLAOUI Khalid9

1 - GEOTER SAS, 3 rue Jean Monnet, 34830 CLAPIERS – France (david.carbon@geoter.fr)

2 - GEOTER International, Espace 830, Route Nationale 96, 13360 ROQUEVAIRE – France (christophe.martin@geoter.fr)
3 – Actuellement à l’IRSN BP 17 - 92262 Fontenay Aux Roses Cedex– France (christophe.clement@irsn.fr)
4 – Ministère de l’Equipement et des Transports, DRCR/DOA, Rabat, Maroc (boucetta@mtpnet.gov.ma)
5 – Université Mohammed V, Rabat, Morocco
6 – Institut Scientifique, Rabat, Morocco
7 - GEOTER SAS, 3 rue Jean Monnet, 34830 CLAPIERS – France (philippe.combes@geoter.fr)
8 - GEOTER International, Espace 830, Route Nationale 96, 13360 ROQUEVAIRE – France (ramon.secanell@geoter.fr)
9 – Ministère de l’Equipement et des Transports, DRCR/DOA, Rabat, Maroc (abdellaoui@mtpnet.gov.ma)

The Roads and Road Traffic Directorate of the Ministry of Equipment and Transport of Morocco has
entrusted SETEC International a mission to draw up a seismic design guide for bridges. In this context,
a new nationwide seismic zonation was conducted by GEOTER and its partners, following the PSHA
state-of-the-art. For the first time, PGA seismic hazard maps for the entire territory were developed
using a probabilistic approach.

In areas with moderate seismicity, the approach is often faced with a lack of knowledge and a high
variability of the occurrence model parameters, especially for strong earthquakes with very long return
periods. Epistemic and aleatory uncertainties related to geological and seismological input data and
models were addressed and processed in a logic tree and by Monte-Carlo sampling.

To interpret the seismotectonic setting, two teams of experts (GEOTER and Moroccan teams) have
independently developed two alternative zonations. A catalogue of earthquakes was compiled for
Morocco and surrounding regions, using data from various national catalogs, the IGN of Spain and ISC.
The Intensity of historical earthquakes was converted in magnitudes using empirical relations in order
to homogenize the data into a single catalogue of homogenized magnitude. To satisfy the spatial and
temporal principle of events independence, the foreshocks and aftershocks were removed to calculate
the parameters of magnitude-frequency distributions.

Uncertainties were propagated using a logic tree, whose the two first branches concern the conceptual
models for calculating the seismic hazard (seismic zoning or smoothing). The second level comprises
the branches associated to the zonations and the third level concerns the ground motion models.
Three attenuation laws were selected. The other uncertainties on seismic sources parameters (Mmin,
Mmax, depth, GR parameters) through Monte Carlo sampling. The statistical exploration of all the
combinations leaded to the definition of PGA hazard curves at points of a regularly spaced grid
covering the Moroccan territory. Maps of statistical values (median, mean, 15th and 85th percentiles)
were derived at return periods of 100, 475 and 975 years.

Those maps were finally used to propose a new seismic zonation supporting the regulation for the
seismic of bridges. Several PGA thresholds were adopted to delineate five areas of increasing hazard.
The most active areas are the Rif and in a lower level, the Middle Atlas and the Atlas. The final
regulatory zonation was developed by intersecting the physical hazard with the communal
administrative boundaries provided by the DRCR.

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