ARTICLE IN PRESS

Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 27 (2007) 475–486

www.elsevier.com/locate/soildyn

Earthquake ground motion in Mexico City: An analysis of data

recorded at Roma array
Martı́n Cárdenas-Sotoa,, Francisco J. Chávez-Garcı́ab
a
Facultad de Ingenierı´a, UNAM, Coyoacan, Mexico D.F., Mexico
b
Instituto de Ingenierı´a, UNAM, Mexico D.F., Mexico
Received 26 August 2006; accepted 3 September 2006

Abstract

We analysed in detail three earthquakes recorded in a small-aperture accelerometric array in Mexico City, using the correlation of the
records as a function of time along the accelerogram and frequency. Ground response is strongly conditioned by the fundamental period
of the soft soils at the site of the array (T0). Energy at periods longer than 2T0 is guided by the crustal structure (with a thickness of
45 km). The wave field at periods between T0 and 2T0 also consists of surface waves but guided by the upper 2–3 km of volcanic
sediments in central Mexico. For periods smaller than T0, ground motion is uncorrelated among the stations. Our results indicate that
seismic response of Mexico City, including its very long duration, results from deeply guided surface waves (between 2 and 45 km depth)
interacting with the very local response of the soft surficial clay layer.
r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Mexico city; Accelerometer array; Surface waves; Seismic duration; Phase velocity; Correlation analysis

1. Introduction
Mexico City has repeatedly experienced destructive
seismic motion from earthquakes occurring along the
Pacific subduction zone, more than 300 km away. Several
factors play a key role in this. A slower decay of amplitude
for energy propagating perpendicular to the subduction
zone (in the direction of Mexico City) than that along
paths parallel to the coast has been observed [1]. In
addition, large amplification of ground motion (up to a
factor 40 in the frequency domain) occurs on soft soil
relative to firm soil in Mexico City. Finally, strong ground
motion has shown repeatedly a very long duration. A great
many studies have dealt with these aspects in the past 20
years, after the occurrence of the September 1985 earth-
quakes, events that caused large damage in Mexico’s
capital city. It is clear, for example, that the large
amplification is due to the large impedance contrast
between the soft sediments filling an ancient lake below
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: martinc@servidor.unam.mx (M. Cárdenas-Soto).
Mexico City. However, this does not explain the large
duration of ground motion, characterized by a succession
of harmonic wave packages [2]. This long duration was the
object of several papers, where different factors were
advanced as possible explanations, from 2D or 3D site
effects to gravity perturbations on surface waves. These
different factors were analysed and rejected as the reason
behind the large duration using numerical modelling by
Chávez-Garcı́a and Bard [3–5]. As a result, a need to return
to data analysis became evident; in order to better
understand the wavefield propagating in Mexico City
during large earthquakes.
The main event in 1985 was recorded by only 8 digital
accelerographs. The first analysis of these records used
spectral ratios to quantify the amplification due to the soft
soil layers of the lakebed zone [6]. These same records were
later reappraised by Chávez-Garcı́a et al. [7], who were able
to identify clearly surface wave modes in two period bands.
In the band 7–10 s, these surface waves propagated along
the direction epicentre-stations, with velocities predicted by
depth crust structure. In the period band 3–6 s, surface
waves were again observed, but they propagated with

0267-7261/$ - see front matter r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.soildyn.2006.09.003
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
476 M. Cárdenas-Soto, F.J. Chávez-Garcı´a / Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 27 (2007) 475–486
directions different from the epicentral one. Chávez-Garcı́a
et al. [7] hypothesized that the long seismic duration was
due to the interaction of waves guided by the deep
structure of the basin (between 1 and 4 km) with the 1D
resonance of the superficial layers.
Characterization of the wavefield at Mexico was also at
the center of a collaboration project between Mexico and
France in 1994. During that project, a dense array of VBB
stations was installed on firm soil in Mexico City. Barker et
al. [8] analysed 11 events recorded in this array, and
showed that, in the period band 2.5–5 s, long duration of
seismic motion in Mexico basin is produced by late surface
wave arrivals. They explained these late arrivals as
wavetrains scattered from the boundaries of the Mexican
Volcanic Belt (MVB). Their observations suggested that
late arrivals are guided by intermediate structure. Recently,
lida [9] reached a similar conclusion from the analysis of
seismic records for one earthquake in four three-element,
vertical arrays. This author proposed that the incident field
in the basin of Mexico consists of Love waves diffracted by
the lateral heterogeneities within MVB. The hypothesis by
Iida was rejected by Shapiro et al. [10], who analysed the
records of 9 subduction events recorded in 5 vertical arrays
in the lake zone of Mexico City. Shapiro et al. [10]
proposed that the wavefield in the lake zone, around 3 s
period, is dominated by higher surface modes. However,
they do not explain the long duration of ground motion.
We observe that the results of data analysis made by
different groups suggest with increasing certainty that
ground motion in Mexico City cannot be interpreted in a
piecewise fashion. All the different papers coincide in that
it is necessary to consider together site effects and regional
propagation effects (e.g., [11]) if we want to understand
ground motion for large earthquakes from the subduction
zone. The results of observation analysis are also backed by
numerical simulation studies of wave propagation in
regional 3D models of the crustal structure [12,13]. A
preliminary model, which requires further testing, has been
proposed in Chávez-Garcı́a and Salazar [14]. An under-
standing of the physical causes of the destructive ground
motion in Mexico City is required if we want to decrease
our current dependence on statistical regressions of
recorded data to predict ground motion in central Mexico
for future large earthquakes.
In this paper we present results of the analysis of strong
ground motion data for three earthquakes (M47) re-
corded in 5 stations of the Mexico City accelerograph
network. These 5 stations form a small-aperture dense
array in the lake zone, and have absolute time (its lack is a
major shortcoming of the accelerograph network on
Mexico City). The analysis consisted of the qualitative
study of the records filtered in different periods (between 1
and 10 s) and a careful correlation study of waveforms. We
tried to determine the nature of the waves and their
propagation directions and velocities, as a function of
frequency and time. The results show that, for periods
longer than 5 s, the seismic wavefield consists of surface
waves propagating from the epicentre with phase velocities
similar to those predicted by an average crustal velocity
model validated for central Mexico. In the period band
between 3 and 6 s, incoming energy comes only partially
from the epicentre and we observe significant contributions
coming from other directions, even if the observed phase
velocities are in good agreement with those predicted by
the crustal model. Finally, for periods smaller than 3 s, we
observe a strong resonance of the soft soil layers, with long
duration of seismic motion, in addition to harmonic wave
packets in the surface records. At these short periods
correlation between stations drops sharply and we interpret
the wavefield as consisting mainly of vertical propagation
of body waves.
2. Strong motion data
We analysed data of the small Roma array. This array
consists of 5 acceleration stations; three on the free surface
and two down a borehole (Fig. 1). Roma array is located
on the soft soil clay layers that form the lake zone, in a
densely urbanized area of Mexico City. The surficial
stratigraphy below the Roma site is shown in Table 1.
This profile is a composite structure derived from down-
hole measurements (by Yamashita Architects & Engineers
Inc., Oyo Corporation [15]), seismic refraction measure-
ments at the hundreds of metre scale within Mexico valley
[16] and a 100 km length refraction experiment [17]. The
Poisson ratio for the first 200 m is 0.47, in average.
Dominant period (T0) at the site of Roma array is 2.25 s.
The three surface stations form a triangle of dimensions 92,
115 and 140 m. Under one of the surface stations, two
additional accelerometers are installed at 30 and 102 m
depth. The instruments installed are 16 bit Akashi SMAC-
MD accelerometers synchronized to a GPS system. A
detailed shear velocity distribution [15] shows that the
surface stations (C0, A0 and B0) are located on the
topmost layer, 2 m thick, with a shear wave velocity of
90 m/s. Station C1 is located between a change of velocity
of 80 and 200 m/s, and station C2 is at the boundary
between 430 and 660 m/s shear wave velocity.
Roma array has recorded a large number of events
during its operation. From these, we have selected three
events. We believe they are representative enough of strong
ground motion in Mexico City. Table 2 shows the
parameters of the selected events. Events 1 and 2 occurred
on the Pacific subduction zone, in front of the Guerrero
and Michoacán coasts, respectively. Event 3 is a normal
intraplate earthquake located in central Mexico. We first
analysed qualitatively the records filtered around different
periods. Then, we examined the wavefield crossing the
array using a correlation analysis. Radial and transverse
components refer to their orientation relative to the
epicentre and thus refer to different directions for each
event (Table 1).
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
M. Cárdenas-Soto, F.J. Chávez-Garcı´a / Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 27 (2007) 475–486 477

N
B0
RMC 4sec m
.97 13
9.9
91 2m
A0
3sec C0
114.91m
2sec
30m
C1

1sec 72m
C2

Fig. 1. Left: map of Mexico City valley showing the location of Roma Array (shaded square). The solid circles indicate the locations of accelerometric
surface stations. The grey shaded area represents the hill zone and the dashed line indicates the limits between transition and lakebed zones. Solid lines
indicate main streets. Grey lines are contours of dominant period for the resonance on the lakebed zone for 1, 2, 3 and 4 s. Right: a schema showing the
spatial distribution of the stations that compose Roma array. The three stations on the surface are A0, B0, and C0. Under the latter are located two
borehole accelerometers: C1 at 30 m depth, and C2 at 102 m depth.

Table 1 where f min ¼ 0:1 Hz, and i ¼1, 2,y,25. The bandwidth of
Composite soil model built for the site of Roma array the filter was determined for each central frequency fn using
Thickness Vp (km/s) Vs (km/s) r (g/cm3) ð1  wÞf n of oð1 þ wÞf n ,
(km)
where w ¼ 0:2 is the relative bandwidth of the filter. Fig. 2
Yamashita Architects 0.012 1.43 0.045 1.2 shows, for example, the vertical components recorded at
and Engineers Inc. 0.018 1.43 0.06 1.2
station C0 (topmost traces) for the three events of Table 2.
Oyo Corporation [15] 0.014 1.43 0.13 1.4
0.021 1.68 0.35 1.5 Below each recorded trace, Fig. 2 shows the traces that
0.037 1.75 0.43 1.7 result of applying 18 band-pass filters, with central periods
0.075 2.0 0.6 1.8 between 1.5 and 8.0 s. For large periods (larger than 4 s) we
0.1 2.6 1.0 1.9 observe some differences between the filtered traces for the
0.1 2.6 1.2 1.9
different events. At such long periods, these differences
Gutierrez et al. [16] 0.5 2.6 1.2 2.0 must be due to differences in the source and in the crustal
0.8 3.3 2.6 2.3 structure along the corresponding paths. For filters with
1.9 4.5 2.8 2.4
central period between 4.1 and 8.0 s, the filtered traces for
Valdes et al. [17] 7 4.5 2.6 2.6 event 1 show the arrival of energy during long time lapses;
12 5.4 3.2 2.7 at some periods. We distinguish several pulses arriving at
28 7.0 4.0 3.0
— 8.3 4.8 3.3
different times, with similar amplitudes. This contrasts with
that same trace filtered between 2.8 and 3.7 s period, where
The first 8 layers were measured by Oyo Corp. The following 3 layers a single pulse (between 50 and 75 s) dominates the record.
come from Gutierrez et al. [16]. The final 4 layers are taken from the Event 2 shows different results, with a single pulse
crustal model of Valdes et al. [17].
dominating the record between 3 and 8 s period. The last
column in Fig. 2, corresponding to the record of event 3,
shows an intermediate behaviour; several pulses appear
3. Waveform analysis already at 8 s period, but they are closer in time than the
different pulses we observed for event l at similar periods.
The records were filtered around 25 periods, from 1 to It is likely that these arrivals consist mainly of Rayleigh
10 s, using a butterworth filter with a passing band whose waves. We observe large similarities between traces of
width increases with frequency. The central frequency radial components for all stations for periods larger than
varies according to the expression 6 s. Clearly, ground motion at these periods is dominated
by wavetrains with wavelengths significantly longer than
f n ¼ f min ð1:1Þi1 , distance between stations. Consider now the smaller period
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
478 M. Cárdenas-Soto, F.J. Chávez-Garcı´a / Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 27 (2007) 475–486

Table 2
Relevant data of the events used in this study

No. Date Long. W Lat. N Epi. Dist. (km) Depth (km) Baz. (deg.) Mw
dd/mm/yy

1 14/09/95 98.8 16.6 314 21 173 7.5

2 11/01/97 103.0 17.9 442 33 248 7.3
3 15/06/99 97.4 18.2 223 70 127 7.0

Fig. 2. Topmost trace of each column: recorded vertical component at the C0 surface station of Roma array for the three events of Table 2. The
acceleration scale is in gals. Each trace below that one results from the application of one of 18 different band-pass filters to the original record. The central
period of each filter is given on the rightmost column in sec. Each filtered trace is scaled to its maximum amplitude, indicated close to it.

band. When the central period of the filter is smaller than
3 s, several pulses appear in the filtered traces. The records
show pulses with significant amplitude, which contributes
to ground motion for a long time, more than 100 s in some
cases. The shapes of the traces become very different
between the different stations at these short periods and it
is no longer possible to identify common pulses between
stations.
Consider now the records obtained at depth. Fig. 3
shows the radial component recorded at the surface (C0),
at 30 m depth (C1) and at 102 m depth (C2) for event 1.
Below each recorded trace, we show the traces obtained
after filtering through 18 band-pass filters (the central
period of the filter is indicated to the right of each trace).
For periods larger than T0 at the Roma site (2.25 s), the
waveforms are very similar between each group of three
traces, although the traces recorded at depth have smaller
amplitudes. At periods shorter than T0, 1D amplification
by the soft soil layers between C0 and C2 makes the
records very different, and correlation drops sharply. The
surface trace (C0) and the trace at 30 m depth (C1) remain
similar at shorter periods than do the traces at surface and
102 m depth. A recurrent theme regarding ground motion
at Mexico City has been the late arrivals that we can
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
M. Cárdenas-Soto, F.J. Chávez-Garcı´a / Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 27 (2007) 475–486 479

Fig. 3. Topmost trace of each column: radial components recorded at the three stations of the Roma array that form the vertical line at location C for
event 2 of Table 2. The acceleration scale is in gals. C0 is the station at the surface, C1 is located 30 m below station C0, and C2 is located 102 m below
station C0. Each trace below the original radial records results from the application of one of 18 different band-pass filters to the original record. The
central period of each filter is given on the rightmost column in sec. Each filtered trace is scaled to its maximum amplitude, indicated close to it.

observe in the recorded traces at the surface. The recorded
trace at the surface in Fig. 3, for example, shows such a late
arrival at 120 s time. Fig. 3 shows that this late arrival has
its energy around T0, is still present at C1 and is absent
from the record at C2. If we look at vertical components
we observe similar late arrivals, but not correlated with
radial ones. Similar plots were drawn for the transversal
component. For example, Fig. 4 shows the transversal
component recorded at the surface (C0), at 30 m depth (C1)
and at 102 m depth (C2) for event 1. We observe that the
transversal component is not correlated with either the
vertical or radial (see Fig. 3) components for any of the
period bands we analyse. Thus, the prominent pulses
observed for periods larger 6 s could correspond to the
fundamental mode of Love waves.
Consider now the maximum amplitude of the traces
shown in Fig. 3. For period larger than 6 s the amplitude of
the record at the surface is similar to those of the deep
stations (C1 and C2). For periods less than 6 s the
amplitude of the records at depth decreases and for periods
around T0 the amplitude at 102 m is 8 times smaller than
that of the record at surface. A similar behaviour is
observed for the transversal components. However, in the
case of the vertical records we do not observe any decrease
of amplitude with depth. Fig. 5 shows, for example, the five
vertical traces recorded in Roma array for event 1 of Table
2. The traces have been band-pass filtered around 2.5 s,
which corresponds to the site dominant period, and are
plotted with a common amplitude scale. We observe a large
similarity between traces, both in shape and in amplitude.
The analysis of filtered traces shows clearly that T0 serves
as a limit between two different behaviours. For periods
around T0, the uncorrelated late arrivals between stations
and components are responsible (at least in part) for large
amplitudes and long durations. For longer periods traces
are similar, with common wavetrains between the different
stations, from which apparent velocities and directions of
propagation can probably be measured. In the next section
we apply a correlation analysis of the waveforms recorded
between surface and depth stations. We now try to
quantify those differences observed at different periods
and evaluate them in terms of propagating waves.
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
480 M. Cárdenas-Soto, F.J. Chávez-Garcı´a / Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 27 (2007) 475–486

Fig. 4. Topmost trace of each column: transversal components recorded at the three stations of Roma array that form the vertical line at location C for
event 2 of Table 2. The acceleration scale is in gals. C0 is the station at the surface, C1 is located 30 m below station C0, and C2 is located 102 m below
station C0. Each trace below the original transverse records results from the application of one of 18 band-pass filters to the original record. The central
period of each filter is given on the rightmost column in seconds. Each filtered trace is scaled to its maximum amplitude, indicated close to it.

2
A0
0

-2
B0
Acceleration (cm/sec2)

C0

C1

C2

0 50 100 150 200

Time (sec)

Fig. 5. Vertical component records obtained at the five stations of Roma array for event 1 of Table 2. The traces have been band-pass filtered around a
period of 2.5 s. The amplitude scale is common to all traces. The similarity between all traces is remarkable.
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
M. Cárdenas-Soto, F.J. Chávez-Garcı´a / Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 27 (2007) 475–486
4. Correlation analysis
The analysis of waveforms shows that seismic ground
motion is composed of energetic long period pulses that
arrive at the stations during a long time. For periods larger
than 3 s we observed similar waveforms between vertical
and radial components, which suggest that the records
consist of Rayleigh waves. In order to explore in more
detail these wavetrains, we have used a crosscorrelation
analysis. In a first time, we explored the ellipticity
computed for those parts of the records where we could
identify significant correlation between vertical and radial
traces. In a second time, we analysed together the records
from the five stations, trying to determine phase velocities
and directions of propagation of common wavetrains
across the array.
We computed the crosscorrelation function for each
couple of stations we analysed. To this end, we used the
same set of bandpass filters discussed above. Each filtered
trace was windowed using overlapping windows (an
overlap of 1/3 of the window’s length). The length of each
time window was 9 times the central period of the
corresponding bandpass filter. For each time window a
correlation coefficient was computed between the two
waveforms to be compared. If there were perfect correla-
tion between the two windows, we expect a correlation
coefficient of 1 (for in-phase signals) or 1 (for opposition-
of-phase signals). From all the possible time–frequency
windows for each station pair, we kept only those windows
for which the crosscorrelation was significant and which
had significant amplitudes. We defined a crosscorrelation
value as significant by computing the probability (the p-
value) of getting that crosscorrelation value by pure
chance, assuming that the true crosscorrelation value was
0. We kept only the crosscorrelation value for those
windows for which p was smaller than 0.05 (i.e., a 5%
probability of getting that crosscorrelation value from pure
chance). In addition, we made a selection based on the
amplitudes of the time–frequency windows. After filtering
the complete trace by anyone of our bandpass filters, we
computed the sum of the squared amplitudes of the filtered
trace (ET). Then, for each time window chosen from the
filtered trace, we also computed the sum of the squared
amplitudes (EW). We only kept the crosscorrelation values
for the time windows for which E W 40:85E T . If the
correlation computed for a given frequency–time window
was associated with a p-value larger than 0.05, or the
amplitudes for that time window were small relative to the
amplitudes of the complete filtered trace the crosscorrela-
tion was considered to be insignificant, and the results for
that window were not processed any further.
Consider first the analysis of the three stations along the
same vertical line (C0, C1, and C2) and the correlation
between vertical and radial (relative to the epicentre-station
direction) components recorded at each station. Fig. 6
shows, for example, the significant correlation coefficients
as a function of time and period for event 1, computed
481
10
8
Period (sec)
CC values
0.5
6 0
4
-0.5
2
0 50 100 150 200 250
Time (sec)
Fig. 6. Values of the correlation coefficient computed between the radial
and the vertical components for station C0 as a function of time along the
record and central period of the filter used. Data come from event 1. The
rectangle dimensions along time coincide with the time window analysed.
The white portions in the diagram indicate time–frequency windows for
which the correlation was deemed not valid.
between the radial and vertical components of station C0
(at the surface). The colour of each rectangle indicates the
value of the correlation coefficient (CC) between the two
traces, at the corresponding time and period window. The
white space in the diagram indicates frequency–time
windows for which the crosscorrelation was considered
insignificant, attending to the above criteria. The time scale
in Fig. 6 is that used in Fig. 2, where we observed that
amplitudes of the filtered traces are small for times smaller
than 30 s. The pulses with large amplitude appear at times
larger than 30 s. Fig. 6 shows CC values close to 0.4 for
periods larger than 7 s, and for the time window from 25 to
100 s. We verified (though a polarization analysis) that
these time–frequency windows (periods larger than 7 s and
time windows between 25 and 100 s) correspond to clear
Rayleigh waves. It is easy to verify this by observing the
similarity between waveforms for periods larger than 6 s
between vertical and radial components in Fig. 2 of Event 1
and anyone of those shown in Fig. 3. Thus, we can
establish that clear and well-developed Rayleigh waves
correspond with a CC value of 0.4. The prominent pulses
observed at around 150 s time in Fig. 3, correspond to CC
values between 0.2 and 0.4, suggesting that either they are
not Rayleigh waves, or they propagate along a direction
different from the epicentral one.
We observe that the CC values are close to zero between
5 and 7 s period at the beginning of the records, and for
times larger than 180 s at periods larger than 7.5 s,
indicating that the vertical and radial components are not
correlated. In the period band from 2.5 to 4.5 s period, CC
values are close to 1 (that is, the signals are similar and in
phase). For period values close to T0, we observe large
negative CC values, close to 1 (which means that the
waveforms between vertical and radial components are
very similar but in opposition of phase). For periods
smaller than 2 s the value of CC changes rapidly, suggesting
the presence of different wavetrains. The patches where CC
is close to 0.4 in Fig. 6 indicate time–frequency windows
where the contribution of Rayleigh waves propagating
along the epicentral direction are dominant.
If ground motion consists essentially of surface waves,
we expect similar correlation between radial and vertical
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
482 M. Cárdenas-Soto, F.J. Chávez-Garcı´a / Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 27 (2007) 475–486
10
Differences of
Period (sec)
8 0.5
CC values
6 0
4
-0.5
2 tions different from the epicentral one (and thus we should
0 50 100 150 200 250
Time (sec)
Fig. 7. Difference between the correlation coefficient computed between
the radial and vertical components for station C0 (Fig. 6) and those
computed for station C2, at 102 m.
components at the surface and at depth. This would be
especially the case when the wavelength of those surface
waves is larger than the distance between stations. We have
computed the CC between radial and vertical components
for the station at 102 m depth, well below the lower limit of
the very soft clay layer. Fig. 7 shows the difference between
the CC values computed at the surface between radial and
vertical components, and those at 102 m depth. The white
space in Fig. 7 indicates time–frequency windows where the
CC between vertical and radial components was insignif-
icant either at the surface or at 102 m depth. Fig. 7 shows
that the correlation between radial and vertical at the
surface is very similar to the correlation between those two
components at 102 m depth, as the difference is close to
zero for periods larger than 3 s. If correlation is high at the
surface, it is also high at depth, all along the time duration
of the records. This result supports the idea that surface
waves are dominant at all times, for periods larger than 3 s.
The larger values in Fig. 7 (larger than |0.25|) at periods
smaller than 3 s, indicate time–frequency windows where
the correlation between radial and vertical components at
the surface is different from that at depth, suggesting that
body waves are important. The limiting period coincides
with the dominant period of the very soft layers at Roma.
When we compare the CC values between radial and
vertical components at the surface with those values
computed for the record at 30 m depth, we observe even
larger similarities (difference between CC values close to
zero) than those shown in Fig. 7. However, the distinction
between periods larger and smaller than 3 s is blurred. This
can be easily understood because the thickness of the soft
soil layer at the Roma site that produce the resonance at
2.25 s is larger than 30 m, the depth of station C1. Thus,
even body waves will be similar between the records at the
surface and at 30 m depth.
A similar analysis was done for events 2 and 3. The
results are very similar to those for event 1. The CC values
computed between the radial and vertical components
recorded at the surface are very similar to those computed
between the same components recorded at 102 m depth for
periods larger than 3 s. The same comparison of CC values
between the record at the surface and that at 30 m depth
results in smaller differences. For periods larger than 7 s,
these surface waves propagate along the direction from
epicentre to stations. However, CC values between 3 and
7 s period show a wider range of values. The dominant
wavelengths (discussed below) are several km long, and
waves are still surface waves. We interpret this as
contributions from wavetrains propagating along direc-
look at different directions for the radial component,
relative to the propagation direction). This suggests that
the irregular 3D geometry of the crust plays a large role in
this period band (an equivalent result has been obtained
using numerical modelling by Furumura and Kennett [12]).
For periods smaller than 3 s, ground motion is correlated
between the surface and 30 m depth, but it is not between
the surface and 102 m depth, indicating that in this period
band, the energy gets trapped by the soft layer.
Let us consider now the values of ellipticity, i.e., the ratio
between the amplitudes of radial and vertical motions. We
computed ellipticity only for those time–frequency win-
dows for which a valid CC value was computed previously
(e.g., the coloured rectangles in Fig. 6 for the radial and
vertical components recorded at the surface for event 1).
For each of those time–frequency windows, we computed
the envelope of the windowed, filtered traces and a value of
Ur/Uz determined as the ratio of the maximum amplitudes
of the envelope.
Fig. 8 shows, for example, the ratio Ur/Uz at the surface
(Fig. 8a) and at 102 m depth (Fig. 8b) for the intense part
of the records (time window 25–150 s in Fig. 2) for event 1.
Each coloured rectangle in Fig. 8 corresponds to a
particular time–frequency window. The colours represent
the CC value computed for that particular time–frequency
window, while the position of the rectangle indicates the
102
0.5
CC values
101
Ur/Uz
0
100 -0.5
10-1
100 101
(a) Period (sec)
102
0.5
CC values
101
Ur/Uz
0
100 -0.5
10-1
100 101
(b) Period (sec)
Fig. 8. Ellipticity as a function of period for event 1 recorded at the
surface (a, station C0) and at 102 m depth (b, station C2). The centre of
each coloured rectangle indicates the observed ellipticity value as a
function of period. The colour of each rectangle indicates the value of the
CC for the corresponding frequency window, according to the colour scale
to the right of each diagram. The analysis included 100 s of the record,
from 50 to 150 s time in Fig. 2. The thick lines show the expected ellipticity
curves for the fundamental (solid) and first higher (dashed) modes of
Rayleigh waves, computed for the soil model given in Table 1.
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
M. Cárdenas-Soto, F.J. Chávez-Garcı´a / Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 27 (2007) 475–486
ellipticity value as a function of period. For periods larger
than 4 s, Ur/Uz values are similar at the surface and at
102 m depth. Also in this period range, CC values (given by
the colours of the rectangles in Fig. 8) are similar between
the surface and 102 m depth. For periods between 2 and
3.5 s, Ur/Uz at the surface is larger than at 102 m depth, by
a factor between 5 and 10. We have shown that vertical
components are not affected by the soft surficial layers at
Roma. Thus, the large difference in the ellipticity values
between the surface and 102 m depth in this period range
reflects the large amplification of horizontal ground motion
in this period range. For periods smaller than 2 s, there is
not a large difference in ellipticity values between the
surface and 102 m depth, although values at the surface are
slightly larger. Also, the CC values indicated by the colours
are not correlated between the two diagrams for periods
smaller than 2 s, indicating that ground motion is not
correlated at those two sites. We have included in Fig. 8 the
theoretical ellipticity curves for the fundamental (solid line)
and first higher (dashed line) modes of Rayleigh waves
computed for the composite velocity profile at Roma site
(Table 1). For periods larger than 4.5 s, the position of the
rectangles (i.e., the observed ellipticity) follows the
theoretical curve for the fundamental mode, both at the
surface and at 102 m depth. Our analysis indicates that
ground motion is dominated by surface waves for periods
larger than 4.5 s. Between 2 and 3.5 s period the analysis
indicates that horizontal motion at the surface is domi-
nated by the resonance of the soft clay layer.
As our final analysis stage we computed phase velocity
and direction of propagation from our records. The
crosscorrelation computation allows to measure not only
the similarity between traces. It also allows us to compute a
delay between station pairs. If we assume plane wave
propagation, it is possible to estimate the phase velocities
and the directions of propagation of the waves from those
delays. We have used the three components (vertical, radial
and transversal) recorded at the three surface stations (A0,
B0 and C0) plus that at 102 m depth (station C2). These 4
stations have all similar inter-station distances. We
measured time delays, as a function of time along the
record and period, for all possible station pairs among
these 4 stations. Following our previous computations, we
have only considered time delays measured from cross-
correlations that satisfied our quality requirements (asso-
ciated p-value smaller than 0.05 and energy of the filtered
time window larger than 85% of the energy for the
complete filtered trace). If we assume plane wave propaga-
tion, the time delays can be used to calculate apparent
velocities across the array and corresponding directions of
propagation.
The procedure consists in constructing and solving the
following equation system
Aij xj ¼ yi ,
where A is the matrix of distances between stations, with
i ¼ 1, 2,y,6, being the station pair number (equal to six
483
for all possible combinations between 4 stations), and
j ¼ 1, 2, 3; being the index of the component of slowness
vector. Vector xj, is formed by the unknown components of
the slowness vector, ~ p,
0 1
px
Bp C
~
p ¼ @ y A,
pz
where x points to the East, y to the North and z upwards.
The slowness vector completely characterizes a plane wave,
as it points in the direction of its propagation, and its
module is the inverse of its propagation velocity:
1
pj ¼
j~
c
and the direction of propagation in the horizontal plane,
measured clockwise from the North, can be obtained as
 
1
py
x ¼ tan .
px
Finally, vector yi contains the measured time delays
between common waveforms for our 6 station pairs. Given
that Roma array is small, the values obtained for long
wavelengths (long periods) may have large uncertainties.
Fig. 9 plots the values of the three components of the
slowness vector, obtained for event 1, for those time
windows where the largest amplitudes occur (25–180 s). In
spite of the large uncertainties, we observe a very clear
difference between these values for periods larger than T0
and those for periods smaller than T0. For periods larger
than T0, the slowness vector has small components, which
correspond to large phase velocity values. The horizontal
components are larger than the vertical component, which
indicates that the corresponding waves propagate only on
the horizontal plane (if pz is small, this means that velocity
is infinite in the vertical direction). For periods smaller than
0.002
px
py
0.001 pz
Slowness (sec/km)
0
-0.001
-0.002
1 10
Period (sec)
Fig. 9. Values of the three components of the slowness vector computed
from the CC values obtained for event 1 as a function of period. The
slowness vector was computed from the delays among station pairs,
obtained from the crosscorrelation computations. The propagation
velocity along each of the three spatial components equals the inverse of
the corresponding slowness component.
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
484 M. Cárdenas-Soto, F.J. Chávez-Garcı´a / Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 27 (2007) 475–486

T0, we observe a large scatter of the values of the slowness
vector components. The corresponding phase velocities
decrease significantly. The vertical component slowness
also increases significantly indicating that we have vertical
as well as horizontal propagation.
Consider now only the wave propagation along the free
surface (i.e., the horizontal components of slowness). From
the values of px and py, we can compute the apparent
velocity along the free surface and the direction of
propagation of the waves. The results are shown in
Fig. 10. Regarding the phase velocity, we observe again
two different pictures according to the period band, but the
results are very similar between vertical and radial
components. For periods larger than T0, the scatter in
apparent velocity is very large. This is due to the very large
errors of our procedure at these large periods. We expect
phase velocities about 3 km/s, which implies wavelengths
between 9 km (at 3 s period) and 24 km (at 8 s period). The
small Roma array is unable to measure the delay of these
5
large wavelengths over a small distance. The apparent
velocities for periods smaller than T0 show a much smaller
scatter, and are comprised between 0.5 and 1.5 km/s. In this
period range, wavelengths are smaller, but still larger than
1 km. We have argued that ground motion is controlled by
propagation within the soft clay layers at frequencies below
T0. However, apparent velocity on the free surface is still
much larger than the expected propagation velocity (which
can be as low as 60 m/s). This implies that wave
propagation is mostly in the vertical direction, which we
measure as large phase velocities along the free surface. As
regards the direction of propagation, shown in the lower
diagram, we do not observe the large differences we
observed for apparent as a function of period. At large
periods, the waves seem to propagate predominantly in the
direction epicentre-stations (shown by the dashed line),
however, these results are flawed by large uncertainties. At
periods smaller than T0, the wavefield seems to have
contributions propagating towards the SW and towards
the NW, however, the scatter is large.

5. Conclusions
4
Apparent velocity (km/sec)

We have explored the nature of the seismic wavefield

3 that propagated in the lake zone of Mexico City during
three large earthquakes. The data we used were the records
2
of those events in the stations of the accelerograph array at
Roma site, installed and maintained by CENAPRED,
Mexico. Three of these stations form a triangle at the
1 surface, while two more are installed at 30 and 102 m
depth. The records were bandpass filtered around 25
0 periods, from 1 to 10 s, using a butterworth filter with a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 passing band whose width increases with frequency. In a
Period (sec) first time, we compared the filtered traces qualitatively. In a
second time, the filtered traces were analysed in detail
W
computing the crosscorrelation among traces as a function
of time and period. The delays computed from the
crosscorrelation analysis, when the observed correlation
N
Direction of propagation

was large, were used to determine phase velocities and

directions of propagation of the wavefield across Roma
array.
E The qualitative analysis of the filtered traces showed
that, at long periods, the wavefield consists of surface
waves guided by the crustal structure. The crosscorrelation
S analysis indicates that these surface waves in the vertical
and radial components correspond to the fundamental and
possibly also the first higher modes of Rayleigh waves,
W propagating from the epicentral region for the more intense
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
part of the signals. The late part of the records shows the
Period (sec)
same propagation modes but with contributions from
Fig. 10. Apparent velocity (top diagram) and direction of propagation other directions of propagation. We observed that seismic
(bottom diagram) as a function of period on the free surface (i.e., the duration is independent of the direction between epicentre
vertical component of the slowness vector was not considered). The
and stations of the event. The recorded ground motion has
dashed line in the bottom diagram indicates the direction from the
epicentre to the stations. The shaded circles correspond to results for the large duration around the fundamental period at Roma site
vertical component, while the squares indicate the results for the radial (T 0 ¼ 2:25 s). At this period, we observe that monochro-
component. matic wavetrains (the notorious beating) dominates the
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
M. Cárdenas-Soto, F.J. Chávez-Garcı´a / Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 27 (2007) 475–486
coda of the records at the surface, but are not observed at
102 m depth.
The cross correlation analysis was used to measure the
degree of similarity between records. We observed that the
vertical motion is similar among all the stations and almost
for all the period range we analysed. Vertical ground
motion is not amplified as it propagates through 102 m of
totally saturated soil. In contrast, horizontal components
are correlated only for periods larger than 5 s. For periods
smaller than 5 s, the station at 102 m depth is not correlated
with the stations at the surface. In contrast, the correlation
is high among the stations at the surface for periods larger
than 3 s. For periods smaller than 3 s, even the three surface
stations (with spacing smaller than 140 m) become un-
correlated. For those time-period-windows for which we
observed large correlation, we computed the average Ur/Uz
amplitude ratio as a function of period and time along the
records. The results showed again that, for periods larger
than 5 s, ground motion in the vertical and radial
components is dominated by the fundamental mode of
Rayleigh waves. Likewise, at long periods, ground motion
in the transversal component is dominated by the funda-
mental mode of Love waves. The basis for this statement is
that transversal motion at long periods occurs as a single
energy group, which arrives at Roma before the funda-
mental mode of Rayleigh waves arrives at the vertical and
radial components. The advance of this group in the
transversal component is equal to the predicted difference
between Love and Rayleigh waves computed from a
standard crustal model in central Mexico and the
epicentral distance. For periods between 2 and 3.5 s, the
ellipticity values at the surface are larger by a factor
between 5 and 10 than those values at 102 m depth. Given
that the correlation between motion at the surface and at
depth decreases sharply in this period band, this is evidence
that motion in this period band is dominated by the 1D
resonance of the soft clay layers.
Finally, the time delays between filtered seismic records
obtained from the crosscorrelation were used to determine
phase velocity and direction of propagation, assuming
plane waves. For periods larger than T0 the horizontal
components of the slowness vectors show small values
(indicating large propagation velocities). The vertical
components are even smaller than the horizontal, indicat-
ing that the waves propagate in a horizontal plane. The
analysis of the slowness vectors components on the free
surface suggests that at these long periods the energy comes
mainly from the epicentre (although, the precision that can
be obtained using data from a an array whose size is
between 80 and more than 200 times smaller than the
propagating wavelength is small). For smaller periods, the
module of the slowness vectors increases significantly,
indicating that the propagating waves are confined to the
topmost layers. For these smaller periods, we observe
propagation in both horizontal and vertical directions. The
measured phase velocities on the free surface indicate that
the resonant motion that we observed throughout does not
485
show infinite apparent velocity along the free surface, as we
expect for vertically propagating waves. We observe rather
an apparent velocity along the free surface of about 1 km/s.
However, all of our previous results at these short periods
indicate that the resonance of the soft clay layers controls
ground motion at the surface. This apparent contradiction
is solved if we assume that the motion we observe at short
periods is the vertical resonance of the clay layers, but
driven by surface waves propagating beneath those. Thus,
our results strongly support the explanation of the long
duration at Mexico City as the result of the interaction of
surface waves with the very local 1D resonance.
All of our results suggest that, for periods larger than the
dominant period at Roma site (T0), surface waves
dominate ground motion. At T0, horizontal ground motion
becomes uncorrelated between the surface and 102 m
depth, with the notorious monochromatic beating appear-
ing at the surface. This argues against the interpretation of
that beating in terms of 1D propagation, as proposed in
Singh and Ordaz [2]. For periods smaller than T0, our
results suggest the coexistence of body and surface waves,
propagating within the soft clay layers. Thus, in order to
understand the long duration of ground motion in the lake
zone of Mexico City, we need to consider together path and
site effects. The results presented here argue in favour of
the interaction of surface waves with the local 1D
resonance as the physical mechanism that can explain the
observed ground motion. Those surface waves do not
appear to be a single mode, but seem to result from
contributions propagating from the source and also from
diffractors on the path source—Mexico City.
Acknowledgements
The analysis presented here was initiated during a visit of
one of us (MC) to LGIT, Grenoble, France. The
discussions with P.Y. Bard during this visit were very
helpful. The article benefited from the comments of an
anonymous reviewer. CENAPRED, Mexico, owns and
operates the Roma array. We thank them for maintaining
this array with high-quality standards and for graciously
providing the data. This study was supported by CON-
ACYT, Mexico, under Contract 32588-T.
References
[1] Cárdenas M, Lermo J, Núñez-Comú F, González A, Córdoba D.
Seismic energy attenuation in the region between the Coast of
Guerrero and Mexico City: differences between paths along and
perpendicular to the coast. Phys Earth Planet Interiors
1998;105:47–57.
[2] Singh SK, Ordaz M. On the origin of long coda observed in the lake-
bed strong motion records of Mexico City. Bull Seismol Soc Am
1993;83:1298–306.
[3] Chávez-Garcı́a FJ, Bard P-Y. Gravity waves in Mexico City?—I:
gravity perturbed waves in an elastic solid. Bull Seismol Soc Am
1993;83:1637–55.
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
486 M. Cárdenas-Soto, F.J. Chávez-Garcı´a / Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 27 (2007) 475–486
[4] Chávez-Garcı́a FJ, Bard P-Y. Gravity waves in Mexico City?—II:
coupling between and elastic solid and a fluid layer. Bull Seismol Soc
Am 1993;83:1656–75.
[5] Chávez-Garcı́a FJ, Bard P-Y. Site effects in Mexico City eight years
after the September 1985 Michoacán earthquakes. Soil Dynamics
Earthquake Eng 1994;13:229–47.
[6] Singh SK, Mena E, Castro R. Some aspects of the source
characteristics and ground motion amplifications in and near Mexico
City from acceleration data of the September, 1985: Michoacán,
Mexico earthquakes. Bull Seismol Soc Am 1988;78:451–77.
[7] Chávez-Garcı́a FJ, Ramos-Martı́nez J, Romero-Jiménez E. Surface-
wave dispersion analysis in Mexico City. Bull Seismol Soc Am
1995;85:1116–26.
[8] Barker JS, Campillo M, Sánchez-Sesma FJ, Longmans D, Singh SK.
Ana1ysis of wave propagation in the Valley of Mexico from a dense
array of seismometers. Bull Seismol Soc Am 1996;86:1667–80.
[9] Iida M. Excitation of high-frequency surface waves with long
duration in the Valley of Mexico. J Geophys Res 1999;104:7329–45.
[10] Shapiro NM, Singh SK, Almora D, Ayala M. Evidence of dominance
of higher-mode surface waves in the lake-bed zone of the Valley of
Mexico. Geophys J Int 2000;147:517–27.
[11] Cárdenas M, Chávez-Garcı́a FJ, Gusev A. Regional amplification of
ground motion in central Mexico: results from coda magnitude data
and preliminary modeling. J Seismol 1997;1:341–55.
[12] Furumura T, Kennett BLN. On the nature of regional seismic
phases—III: the influence of crustal heterogeneity on the wavefield
for subduction earthquakes: the 1985 Michoacán and 1995 Copala,
Guerrero, Mexico earthquakes. Geophys J Int 1998;135:1060–84.
[13] Furumura T, Singh SK. Regional wave propagation from Mexican
subduction zone earthquakes: the attenuation function for the
interplate and inslab events. Bull Seismol Soc Am 2002;92:
2110–25.
[14] Chávez-Garcı́a FJ, Salazar L. Strong motion in central Mexico: a
model based on data analysis and simple modeling. Bull Seismol Soc
Am 2003;92:3087–101.
[15] Yamashita Architects & Engineers Inc. Oyo Corporation. Estudios
del subsuelo en el Valle de México. Cuaderno de Investigación No.
34, Centro Nacional de Prevención de Desastres, México 1996, 91p
[in Spanish].
[16] Gutierrez CA, Kudo K, Nava E, Yanagizawa M, Singh SK,
Remández FJ, et al. Perfil de refracción en el sur de la ciudad de
México y su correlación con otras fuentes de información. Report
RG/0l/94, Centro Nacional de Prevención de Desastres, México City,
1994 [in Spanish].
[17] Valdes MC, Mooney WD, Singh SK, Meyer RP, Lomnitz C,
Luetgert JH, et al. Crustal structure of Oaxaca, Mexico, from
seismic refraction measurements. Bull Seismol Soc Am 1986;76:
547–63.