Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Structural Dynamics, EURODYN... Porto, Portugal, 30 June - 2 July 2014
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Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Structural Dynamics, EURODYN... Porto, Portugal, 30 June - 2 July 2014
Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Structural Dynamics, EURODYN 2014 Porto, Portugal, 30 June - 2 July 2014 A. Cunha, E. Caetano, P. Ribeiro, G. Müller (eds.) ISSN: 2311-9020; ISBN: 978-972-752-165-4 Ground motion prediction equations for Vrancea intermediate-depth earthquakes S. Demetriu1, R.Vacareanu2, D. Lungu2, F. Pavel2, C. Arion2, M. Iancovici1, A. Aldea2, C.Neagu2 Department of Mechanics of Structures, Technical University of Civil Engineering, Bd. Lacul Tei no. 124, 020396 Bucharest, Romania 2 Department of Reinforced Concrete Structures, Technical University of Civil Engineering, Bd. Lacul Tei no. 124, 020396 Bucharest, Romania email: demetriu@utcb.ro, radu.vacareanu@utcb.ro, lungud@utcb.ro, florin.pavel@utcb.ro, arion@utcb.ro, mihail.iancovici@utcb.ro, aldea@utcb.ro, cristi.neagu@utcb.ro 1 ABSTRACT: Vrancea intermediate-depth seismic source dominates the seismic hazard in more than two thirds of the Romanian territory and in Bucharest as well, and it is likely to produce large magnitude earthquakes (MW > 7.0) several times per century. The paper presents the new ground motion prediction equations (GMPEs) for peak ground acceleration and response spectral accelerations developed for Vrancea intermediate-depth seismic source. The strong ground motion database comprises 465 horizontal components recorded from Vrancea source in earthquakes with moment magnitude in between 5.2 and 7.4 and focal depths ranging from 87 km to 154 km, as well as other 396 horizontal components recorded from subduction intraplate earthquakes worldwide (Chile, India, Japan, Mexico, New Zeeland) with moment magnitude in between 5.6 and 7.8 and focal depths ranging from 69 km to 173 km. The database used in this study is several times larger than the previous ones used in the development of GMPEs for Vrancea intermediate-depth seismic source. The earthquake magnitude, source-to-site-distance and focal depth are considered in the ground motion prediction model. The GMPEs are developed by multiple regression analysis using random mixed effects model. The predicted values are geometric means of ground motion intensity parameters. The total, inter-event and intra-event residuals are analyzed considering several statistical tools and goodness-of-fit parameters. Finally, a comparison is made between the predicted values of ground motion intensity parameters obtained using previous GMPEs developed or recommended for Vrancea subcrustal source and the values obtained using the new attenuation relationship. KEY WORDS: Vrancea seismic source; Ground motion prediction equation; Strong ground motion database; Seismic hazard. 1 INTRODUCTION A comprehensive description regarding the characteristics (focal depth range, area of seismic source, magnitude range, etc.) of the Vrancea subcrustal seismic source can be found in [14], [15] and [7]. A more complex shape of this seismic source was defined by the National Institute for Earth Physics for the SHARE project [35]. On average, this seismic source produced 3 to 5 earthquakes of MW > 6.5 each century [7]. In the 20th century earthquakes with magnitudes MW > 6.7, occurred in October 1908 (MW = 7.1, h = 125 km), November 1940 (MW = 7.7, h = 150 km), March 1977 (MW = 7.4, h = 94 km), August 1986 (MW = 7.1, h = 131 km) and May 1990 (MW = 6.9, h = 91 km), respectively. Several possible geodynamic models for the Vrancea subcrustal seismic source are presented in [24], [31], [18], [19], [20] or [7]. The first studies regarding ground motion models for the prediction of the azimuth-dependent peak ground acceleration of intermediate-depth Vrancea subcrustal seismic events were performed in [12] and [23]. The same functional form from [12] was also used in [13] for the development of an attenuation relation that is not azimuth-dependent (using all available recorded data, regardless of their geographic location). Some additional (azimuth-dependent) ground motion prediction equations for the Vrancea subcrustal seismic source and for PGA were also developed in [33] and [21]. A set of azimuth-dependent ground motion prediction equations specifically derived for the Vrancea subcrustal seismic for peak ground acceleration (PGA), peak ground velocity (PGV), pseudo-spectral acceleration (PSA) and MSK scale seismic intensity is given in [30]. The characteristics of the four above-mentioned GMPEs developed for the Vrancea subcrustal seismic source are given in [5]. Other GMPEs are recommended for the Vrancea intermediate-depth seismic source in [4] which deals with attenuation models for the probabilistic seismic hazard assessment in Europe. The recommended ground motion prediction equations for Vrancea are: Youngs et al. (1997) [40], Zhao et al. (2006) [41], Atkinson and Boore (2003) [1] and Lin and Lee (2008) [11]. An evaluation of these models is presented in [36] , [37]. The main focus of this paper is the development of a new ground motion prediction equation GMPE for Vrancea subcrustal seismic source. The performance of this new model, which is based on an increased strong ground motion database, is evaluated using several goodness-of-fit measures presented in [27], [28] and [4]. The analysis of the inter-event and intra-event residuals [26], [29], [32] is also performed for the available dataset of strong ground motions. 2 STRONG GROUND MOTION DATABASE FOR REGRESSION ANALYSIS The proposed ground motion model for the prediction of spectral accelerations is derived from a national database (strong ground motion records from Vrancea subcrustal earthquakes) and an international database consisting altogether of 431 strong ground motions (861 horizontal components) recorded from 26 intermediate-depth seismic events with moment magnitudes in the range 5.2 ≤ MW ≤ 7.8 [38]. The strong ground motions from Vrancea earthquakes were recorded in Romania, Republic of Moldova, Bulgaria and Serbia. 435 Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Structural Dynamics, EURODYN 2014 The international strong ground motions were recorded in intermediate-depth earthquakes in Japan (K-net and Kik-net data), New Zealand, Mexico, Chile and India. The data come from nine intermediate-depth Vrancea earthquakes as well as from seventeen earthquakes produced in other seismic regions in the world. The range of the focal depth of all earthquakes is in between 69 km to 173 km. This depth range is typical for seismic events produced in the Vrancea region, which are the main focus of this attenuation model. The main characteristics of the database used for the derivation of the ground motion prediction model are given in Table 1. For each seismic event, the date of occurrence, the moment magnitude, the position of the epicenter, the focal depth and the number of used strong ground motions are presented in [38]. Moment magnitude, MW 8.0 No. of earthquakes Vrancea + International 9+ 17 No. of horizontal components 465 + 396 Epicentral distance range, km 2 - 647 The distribution of the earthquake magnitude versus the epicentral distance for the 26 analyzed seismic events is shown in Figure 1. More details on the structure and content of the database used in the multiple regression analysis can be found in [38]. All the strong ground motions recorded in Vrancea intermediate depth seismic events were collected for the BIGSEES national research project [3] from the seismic networks of INFP (National Institute for Earth Physics), INCERC (Building Research Institute), GEOTEC (Institute for Geotechnical and Geophysical Studies) and NCSRR (National Centre for Seismic Risk Reduction). The positions of Vrancea epicenters and of the recording stations are given in Figure 2. The soil conditions for the seismic stations which have recorded the strong ground motions are defined according to EN 1998-1 [6] and are assigned according to [34] (converted from [22] to [6]). The vast majority of the strong ground motions were recorded in soil conditions (classes B, C or D), the exception being some strong ground motions from Vrancea earthquakes recorded in the epicentral region in soil class A. These strong ground motions were also kept in the database due to the lack of strong ground motions recorded in soil conditions from the epicentral region of Vrancea intermediate-depth earthquakes. Although the proposed ground motion prediction model is derived only for soil conditions, it is the authors' opinion that the use of the strong ground motions recorded on harder soil conditions (only in the epicentral region) does not affect the results for larger epicentral distances. In the case of some seismic station the exact soil classification could not be retrieved from the existing database. Nevertheless, the conditions for these stations were assigned as soil, so these data were also used in the regressions (these stations are defined as not classified). 436 7.0 6.5 6.0 5.5 Table 1. Characteristics of the database of strong ground motions [38]. Database 7.5 5.0 0 250 500 Epicentral distance, km 750 Figure 1. Distribution of the earthquake magnitude versus the epicentral distance. Figure 2. Positions of Vrancea epicenters (circles) and of the recording stations (red triangles). 3 FUNCTIONAL FORM AND REGRESSION MODEL The following functional form of the GMPE is selected for the regression analysis [38]: ln y ij T c1 T c 2 T M W ,i 6 c3 T M W ,i 62 c 4 T ln Rij C5 T Rij (1) c6 T hi i ij where i is the earthquake index, j is the recording station’s index, yij is the geometrical mean of the two horizontal components of either PGA (in cm/s2) or 5% damped response spectral acceleration (in cm/s2) for a spectral period T, MW is the moment magnitude (use MW = 7.6 for events of MW > 7.6 for spectral periods up to 1.0 s and use MW = 8.0 for events of MW > 8.0 for spectral periods in excess of 1.0 s), R is the source to site (hypocentral) distance in kilometers, h is the focal depth in kilometers and ck (k = 1 to 6) are coefficients determined from the data set by regression analysis at each spectral period. Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Structural Dynamics, EURODYN 2014 The range of the total standard deviation from 0.711 to 0.923 and the contributions of intra- and inter-event standard deviations to the total variability of the model are rather balanced. The regression coefficients and the residual terms are obtained with the maximum likelihood method [8], [9]. The magnitude effect on the predicted values of ground motion parameters is considered through c1 to c3 coefficients. The influences of the geometrical spreading and of the anelastic attenuation are accounted for in relation (1) through c4 (set to 1.000) and c5 coefficients. The depth effect is included by the coefficient c6. 4 c5 0.00138 0.00095 0.00193 0.00267 0.00269 0.00289 0.00276 0.00271 0.00275 0.00271 0.00247 0.00287 0.00312 0.00329 0.00329 0.00324 0.00312 0.00275 0.00236 0.00198 c6 0.00484 0.00447 0.00474 0.00571 0.00561 0.00518 0.00381 0.00308 0.00273 0.00242 0.00097 0.00036 0.00073 0.00039 0.00002 0.00115 0.00175 0.00218 0.00290 0.00313 Table 3. Standard deviations of the proposed GMPE [38]. T, s σT τ σ 0.0 0.738 0.550 0.491 0.1 0.923 0.692 0.611 0.2 0.874 0.658 0.575 0.3 0.818 0.617 0.536 0.4 0.823 0.592 0.572 0.5 0.790 0.513 0.601 0.6 0.793 0.502 0.614 0.7 0.773 0.488 0.599 0.8 0.755 0.461 0.597 0.9 0.729 0.414 0.600 1.0 0.729 0.414 0.600 1.2 0.719 0.377 0.612 1.4 0.711 0.366 0.610 1.6 0.728 0.401 0.608 1.8 0.732 0.410 0.607 2.0 0.730 0.410 0.605 2.5 0.735 0.402 0.615 3.0 0.750 0.433 0.613 3.5 0.751 0.436 0.612 4.0 0.752 0.463 0.593 300 400 50% 16% 84% Rec 350 300 250 200 150 50% 16% 84% Rec 250 SA1.0 s, cm/s2 c3 -0.4758 -0.3798 -0.5250 -0.6167 -0.6987 -0.7008 -0.6845 -0.7029 -0.6726 -0.6653 -0.6684 -0.6193 -0.5977 -0.5812 -0.5865 -0.5638 -0.5870 -0.6053 -0.6290 -0.6607 200 150 100 100 50 50 0 0 0 100 200 300 0 Epicentral distance d, km 500 450 400 350 300 250 200 150 100 50 0 100 200 300 Epicentral distance d, km 400 50% 16% 84% Rec 50% 16% 84% Rec 350 300 SA1.0 s, cm/s2 c2 1.4863 1.2914 1.5016 1.7468 1.9355 2.0346 2.0695 2.1370 2.1907 2.2422 2.2537 2.3182 2.3958 2.4470 2.4958 2.5124 2.6036 2.6306 2.6152 2.6116 PGA, cm/s2 c1 8.5851 9.1790 9.5719 9.4383 9.2379 9.0571 8.9340 8.7733 8.6120 8.4383 8.3839 8.1855 7.8850 7.7061 7.5257 7.4295 7.0493 6.6822 6.4087 6.1352 The evaluation and validation of the proposed GMPE is performed in several steps. The first step consists of several comparisons of the proposed ground motion model with the observed data from the most instrumented seismic events produced by the Vrancea subcrustal seismic source. In Figure 3 the proposed model is compared with the spectral accelerations at T = 0.0 s and 1.0 s obtained from the data recorded during the Vrancea earthquakes of August 30, 1986 (MW = 7.1), May 30, 1990 (MW = 6.9) and October 27, 2004 (MW = 6.0). PGA, cm/s2 T, s 0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 EVALUATION OF PROPOSED GMPE 250 200 150 100 50 0 0 100 200 300 0 Epicentral distance d, km 100 200 300 Epicentral distance d, km 250 120 50% 16% 84% Rec 200 PGA, cm/s2 Table 2. Regression coefficients of the proposed GMPE [38]. 150 100 50 50% 16% 84% Rec 100 SA1.0 s, cm/s2 The independent normally distributed variates i and ij are the inter-event residuals (error that represents earthquake to earthquake variability of ground motions) with zero mean and a standard deviation of and respectively, the intra-event residuals (error that represents within earthquake variability of ground motions) with zero mean and a standard deviation of . Both intra- and inter-event standard deviations and are period dependent, but are assumed independent of magnitude. The total standard deviation of the model’s prediction is defined as the square root of sum of squares of and . The coefficients c1 to c6 and the standard deviations are given in Table 2 and Table 3 [38]. 80 60 40 20 0 0 0 100 200 Epicentral distance d, km 300 0 100 200 300 Epicentral distance d, km Figure 3. Comparison of observed and predicted spectral accelerations using the proposed GMPE for 3 spectral periods (T = 0.0 s - left- and T = 1.0 s - right) and for three subcrustal Vrancea seismic events: August 30, 1986 (MW = 7.1) – top row-, May 30, 1990 (MW = 6.9) – middle row- and October 27, 2004 (MW = 6.0) – bottom row. 437 Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Structural Dynamics, EURODYN 2014 It is noticeable from Figure 3 that most of the observed data for all three periods are distributed between the median plus/minus one standard deviation. Figure 4 shows the distribution of the total residuals RES with epicentral distance for two spectral accelerations at T = 0.0 s and 1.0 s. spectral periods, it comes out that the homoscedasticity hypothesis holds true. 2.5 PGA 2.0 1.5 2.5 1.5 Total residuals 1.0 0.5 0.0 -0.5 1.0 Inter-event residuals 2.0 0 250 500 0.5 MW 0.0 5 -0.5 6 7 8 -1.0 750 -1.5 -1.0 -2.0 -1.5 -2.0 -2.5 -2.5 1.5 Epicentral distance, km T = 1.0s 1.0 Inter-event residuals 2.5 0.5 2.0 1.5 Total residuals 0.5 5 6 7 8 -0.5 0.0 -0.5 MW 0.0 1.0 0 250 500 750 -1.0 -1.0 -1.5 -1.5 -2.0 -2.5 Epicentral distance, km Figure 4. Distribution of the total residuals RES with epicentral distance for two spectral accelerations at T = 0.0 (top) s and 1.0 s (bottom) No significant bias in the distribution of the residuals can be observed from Figure 4. However, the plots reveal a large amount of variability in the dataset. In the following a closer look at the inter- and intra-event residuals [25], [26], [29], [32] is presented. Figure 5 a), b) displays the variation of the inter-event residuals with the moment magnitude at two spectral periods T = 0 s; 1.0 s. The appropriateness of magnitude scaling is tested by examining the trends of inter-event residuals versus magnitude [26]. The GMPE’s magnitude scaling at all the spectral periods proves to be appropriate. The very low values of the slope and of the offset of the trendlines plotted in Figure 5 a) and b) prove that there is neither trend nor bias in the inter-event residuals. Since the same conclusions are reached for all the investigated 438 Figure 5. Distribution of the inter-event residuals with moment magnitude for two spectral accelerations at T = 0.0 (top) s and 1.0 s (bottom) The appropriateness of distance scaling is tested by examining the trends of intra-event residuals versus distance [26]. The distance scaling of the proposed GMPE is investigated in Figure 6 where the intra-event residuals versus epicentral distances are represented for two spectral periods T, namely 0 s and 1.0 s. The plots show the variation of all the intra-event residuals with epicentral distance along with the linear trendline of the results. The very low values of the slope and of the offset of the trendlines shown in Figure 6 a) and b) prove the correctness of the distance scaling for the proposed GMPE. The mean, median and standard deviation of the normalised residuals NRES [27] calculated for the subset of Vrancea strong ground motions are, respectively MEANNRES = -0.06, MEDNRES = -0.03 and STDNRES = 0.82. The sampling errors [39] of the previously mentioned indicators are less than 1%. If one considers only the ground motions recorded in Vrancea intermediate depth earthquakes, the total standard deviation of the model’s prediction decreases overall with Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Structural Dynamics, EURODYN 2014 18%. Moreover, the bias introduced by the reduced sampling is very low, thus providing a high degree of confidence in using the proposed GMPE for Vrancea intermediate depth seismic events [38]. 2.0 predictions. Moreover, one can notice the low attenuation with the epicentral distance of the LEA00 attenuation model. The proposed model gives higher ground motion amplitudes for T = 1.0 s for earthquakes with MW ≤ 7.0. PGA 1.5 Intra-event residuals 1.0 0.5 0.0 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 -0.5 -1.0 -1.5 -2.0 Epicentral distance, km 2.0 T = 1.0s Intra-event residuals 1.5 1.0 0.5 0.0 0 200 400 600 800 -0.5 -1.0 -1.5 -2.0 Epicentral distance, km Figure 6. Distribution of the intra-event residuals with epicentral distance for two spectral accelerations at T = 0.0 (top) s and 1.0 s (bottom) 5 COMPARISON WITH OTHER GMPES The proposed attenuation model is compared for two generic earthquakes with other GMPEs from literature in Figure 7 [38]. The reference earthquakes have magnitudes MW = 6.5and MW = 7.5 produced at a depth of 100 km. The comparisons are performed for two spectral periods T = 0.0 s and 1.0 s. Our model is assessed against the Lungu et al. (2000) [13] model (LEA00) and the four GMPEs proposed within the SHARE project [4]: Youngs et al. (1997) [40] for soil conditions - YEA97, Atkinson and Boore (2003) [1] for soil class D - AB03 , Zhao et al. (2006) [41] for soil class III ZEA06 and Lin and Lee (2008) [11] for soil conditions LL08. The comparisons with the LEA00 model are performed only for T = 0.0 s. The first obvious conclusion which can be drawn from Figure 7 is the relatively large scatter in the median Figure 7. Median amplitudes for two spectral periods (T = 0.0 s and T = 1.0 s) and for seismic events characterized by two magnitudes (MW = 6.5 and MW = 7.5) with a focal depth of 100 km. The curves correspond to the proposed model and to 5 additional models: LEA00, YEA97, AB03, ZEA06 and LL08 [38] It is also worth mentioning the fact that in most of the analyzed cases, the proposed GMPE has similar median predictions as the YEA97. One can notice from Figure 7 the very similar predictions of the median amplitudes of spectral acceleration at the natural period T = 1.0 s given by both the YEA97 and proposed GMPEs. The previous remark shows that the spectral response is less sensitive to local conditions and, consequently better constrained at higher natural periods. The attenuation rate with the epicentral distance of the proposed attenuation model is smaller than that of the models developed for subduction earthquakes (YEA97, AB03, ZEA06, LL08) and larger than that of the model developed using only strong ground motions from Vrancea intermediatedepth earthquakes (LEA00) [38]. Finally, the total standard deviation of the proposed GMPE is compared in Figure 8 with the standard deviations of the other four GMPEs: YEA97, AB03, ZEA06 and LL08. The standard deviation in the case of the YEA97 model is computed for a MW = 7.0 earthquake. The total standard deviation of the proposed model is the largest in the period range up to T = 0.7 s. However, for spectral periods in excess of 0.7 s, the total standard deviation of the proposed model is smaller than that of the other considered ground motion prediction models, except the AB03 model [38]. 439 Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Structural Dynamics, EURODYN 2014 Figure 8. Distribution of the intra-event residuals with epicentral distance for two spectral accelerations at T = 0.0 (top) s and 1.0 s (bottom) [38] 6 DISCUSSION Previous GMPEs developed for Vrancea subcrustal source in [12], [23], [33] or [21] are azimuth-dependent. Since the new GMPE proposed in this paper is based on a much larger database with both domestic and international earthquakes, the further need for azimuth dependency is investigated. In this respect, the normalized residuals between the observed and the predicted ground motion parameters is obtained for each of the 233 values in the subset of the seismic records generated by Vrancea intermediate-depth source and the pattern distribution of the residuals is investigated. The normalized residuals in each seismic station and for each Vrancea earthquake are represented on the map and the spatial distribution of the residuals is investigated. After careful investigation of the maps one can conclude that there is no need for further modification of GMPE in order to make it azimuth-dependent [38]. In Figure 9 the absolute values of maximum normalized residuals at spectral periods T = 0 s and T = 1.0 s for the proposed GMPE are represented and one can notice that there is no significant azimuth dependency of the residuals. Nevertheless, there is a pattern of the spatial distribution of the values of the normalized residuals: there is a slight underestimation of the observed values in the regions in the front of the Carpathians Mountains (fore-arc region), an overestimation of the observed values in the regions in the back of the Carpathians Mountains (back-arc region) and a transition region in between fore-arc and back-arc [38]. We are currently investigating this pattern in an ongoing research project and a GMPE valid for both fore-arc and back-arc regions is under development. Another issue to be discussed is the behavior of the proposed GMPE for values of moment magnitude MW at the higher end of the scale. A saturation of the values of PGA along with a trend of predicted values to slightly decrease for MW > 7.6 was noticed. The decrease of the predicted values occurs irrespective of the epicentral distance and is produced 440 by the quadratic term in magnitude; the same decrease is reported in [1]. The GMPE requires the capping of the maximum magnitude at MW,cap = 7.6 for prediction of PGA values [38]. Thus estimates of PGA values for seismic events of MW > 7.6 should be made using MW,cap = 7.6. This saturation effect does not imply that a maximum moment magnitude of 7.6 should be assigned in the probabilistic seismic hazard analysis. Rather, the PGA values for seismic events of MW > 7.6 should be calculated using the value of MW,cap = 7.6 in the GMPE. More generally, a capping magnitude can be derived for any spectral period by differentiating relation (1) with respect to MW and equating the result with zero. The analysis reveals that the capping magnitude is MW,cap = 7.6 for spectral periods up to 1.0 s and MW,cap = 8.0 for spectral periods in excess of 1.0 s [38]. Nevertheless, from our probabilistic seismic hazard analyses [2], [10], [16], [17], the differences that arise in a probabilistic seismic hazard analysis performed with and without magnitude capping amounts 2% at the most for ground motion amplitudes with mean return periods larger than 1000 years in the case of MW,cap = 7.6 and vanish for MW,cap = 8.0 [38]. Actually, the capping moment magnitude MW,cap = 8.0 corresponds to the higher end of the scale considered to provide reliable results in using the proposed GMPE. Figure 9. Distribution of absolute values of maximum normalized residuals at T = 0 s (top) and T = 1.0 s (bottom) for the proposed GMPE) [38] 7 CONCLUSIONS A new ground motion prediction model for Vrancea intermediate-depth seismic source is developed in this study. The database used in the regression analysis is more extended Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Structural Dynamics, EURODYN 2014 compared to the previous databases used for the same purpose. The extension of the database consists in including all the instrumented Vrancea earthquakes with moment magnitudes larger than 5.0 and an additional seventeen foreign intermediate-depth earthquakes. The use of international earthquake data is a temporary solution for filling the gaps in the national database. Nevertheless, as more strong ground motions recorded in Vrancea intermediatedepth earthquakes become available, we will revisit this analysis. The current extension of the database increased both the ranges of magnitude and of the source-to-site distance. We consider that the proposed ground motion prediction model provides reliable results for a magnitude range MW = 5.0 ÷ 8.0, an epicentral distance range from 10 km to 300 km and a focal depth range from 60 km to 200 km. We acknowledge that there is some uncertainty related to the upper bound of the moment magnitude scale, which is poorly constrained by the data (extending to MW = 7.8). The epicentral distance and the focal depth ranges may be extrapolated beyond the previously mentioned limits with some caution. We believe that this new GMPE might supersede the previous attenuation models derived for Vrancea intermediate-depth seismic source and address the limits identified in those models. In addition, the proposed GMPE covers peak ground acceleration and response spectral acceleration and a much broader range of earthquake magnitudes and source-to-site distances. The regression coefficients of the GMPE and the residual terms are obtained with the maximum likelihood method [8], [9]. Both intra- and inter-event standard deviations and are period dependent but are independent of magnitude. The total, inter- and intra-event normalized residuals closely fit a standard normal distribution of probability. After careful investigation of the residuals one can conclude that there is no need for further modification of GMPE in order to make it azimuth-dependent. The spatial distribution of the normalized residuals reveals that there is a slight underestimation of the observed values in the regions in the front of the Carpathians Mountains (fore-arc region), an overestimation of the observed values in the regions in the back of the Carpathians Mountains (back-arc region) and a transition region in between. A GMPE valid for both fore-arc and back-arc regions is under development in an ongoing research project. The predicted values of ground motion parameters are applicable for average soil conditions (soil classes B and C in EN 1998-1). The estimates of ground motion parameters for seismic events with MW > MW,cap should be made using the impose capping magnitude, implying that the ground motion parameters’ amplitudes for seismic events of MW > MW,cap should be calculated using the value of MW,cap in the proposed GMPE [38]. international cooperation enabled by IPRED Platform. The authors would also like to acknowledge the permission of the international journal Earthquakes and Structures for using some data and results from [38]. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS [20] Funding for this research was provided within BIGSEES Project by the Romanian National Authority for Scientific Research (ANCS), CNDI – UEFISCDI under the Grant Number 72/2012. This support is gratefully acknowledged. The authors would also like to thank Dr. Carlos Gutiérrez Martínez and Dr. Leonardo Alcántara from CENAPREDUNAM for providing the strong ground motions from subcrustal earthquakes recorded in Mexico within the REFERENCES [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [21] [22] [23] G. Atkinson, and D. Boore, Empirical ground-motion relations for subduction-zone earthquakes and their application to Cascadia and other regions, Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am., 93(4): 1703-1729, 2003. P. Bazzurro, and C. A. Cornell, Disaggregation of seismic hazard, Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am., 89(2): 501-520, 1999. BIGSEES - Bridging the gap between seismology and earthquake engineering: from the seismicity of Romania towards a refined implementation of seismic action EN 1998-1 in earthquake resistant design of buildings. http://infp.infp.ro/bigsees/default.htm. E. Delavaud, F. Cotton, S. Akkar, F. Scherbaum, L. Danciu, C. Beauval, S. Drouet, J. Douglas, R. Basili, A. 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