Soil amplification based on seismometer array and microtremor observations in Chiba, Japan

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Abstract
Soil amplification characteristics of earthquake ground motion were investigated in terms of peak ground acceleration and transfer function based on the Chiba array observation records. The amplification of peak ground acceleration occurred mostly at the top soft layer and was similar for the three components. The effects of non‐linear response of soil deposits on the transfer function were examined. Transfer functions calculated by ensemble average were close for the two horizontal components while those obtained from a smoothing operation were generally different. Both the transfer functions from the ensemble average and the smoothing operation underestimated the gain factor around the natural frequencies. A two‐step smoothing procedure was proposed and a rotary spectrum was used to improve the estimation of the transfer function. Microtremors were observed at the locations of the boreholes where seismometers are buried. The power spectrum and spatial coherency of the microtremors were compared with those of the earthquake ground motion. Emphasis was placed on the wavetypes which dominated the peaks in the power spectra.