Evaluation of Site effects in sedimentary basins

Abstract

Different techniques to evaluate seismic site effects in sedimentary basins are reviewed. Broadly speaking, the methods used to analyse the seismic response of a certain place can be classified as empirical, semi-empirical and numerical. Empirical techniques basically estimate site effects with the data recorded by seismic stations, whereas semi-empirical methods use small earthquake records as empirical Green’s functions to simulate strong motion accelerograms. Among the numerical techniques we have distinguished three main groups of methods: a) Domain methods, b) Ray theories and Gaussian beams expansions, and c) Boundary methods. A selection of some of the contributions using these methods, with a wide set of references, is also presented for the interested reader.