LAUSR

Strong ground motions from the 2016 M w 7.0 Kumamoto earthquake (Japan) can be well simulated based on a characterized source model consisting of strong-motion generation areas (SMGAs) with high stress drop and a background area with low stress drop, except at very near-fault stations (Irikura et al. in Earth Planets Sp 69:10, 2017 ). Strong ground motions observed at very near-fault stations less than 3 km away from the surface traces along the Futagawa fault zone have long-period motions including maximum permanent displacements beyond 2 m. To reproduce such long-period ground motions at those very near-fault stations, one must place SMGAs in the seismogenic zone but also add long-period-motion generation areas (LMGAs) in the weak shallow layer (SL) zone between the top of the seismogenic zone and the free surface. During the 2010 M w 7.0 Darfield (New Zealand) earthquake, surface breaks caused by the mainshock were found associated with active faults by field surveys. Strong ground motions from the 2010 Darfield earthquake can also be simulated well using the conventional characterized source model, except for ground motions at very near-fault stations. Reproduction of very near-fault motions with permanent components for the 2010 Darfield earthquake also requires consideration of LMGAs in the SL zone. We thus propose an extension of the characterized source model by adding LMGAs in the SL zone. The parameters for the SMGAs are given following the recipe of Irikura and Miyake (Pure Appl Geophys 168:85–104, 2011 ), while the parameters of the LMGAs are estimated from two scaling relationships, viz. the surface displacement versus the average slip in the rupture area from the source inversion, and the surface displacement versus the rise time of the slip velocity time function in the LMGA from the forward simulation.