Conditional probability of distributed surface rupturing during normal-faulting earthquakes

Coseismic surface faulting is a significant source of hazard for critical plants and distributive infrastructure; it may occur either on the principal fault or as distributed rupture on nearby faults. Hazard assessment for distributed faulting is based on empirical relations which, in the case of normal faults, were derived almost 15 years ago using a dataset of US earthquakes. We collected additional case histories worldwide, for a total of 21 earthquakes, and calculated the conditional probability of distributed faulting as a function of distance from the principal fault. We found no clear dependency on the magnitude nor the time of occurrence of the earthquakes, but our data consistently show a higher probability of rupture when compared with the scaling relations currently adopted in engineering practice. We derive updated empirical regressions and show that the results are strongly conditioned by the averaging of earthquakes effectively generating distributed faulting at a given distance and those which did not generate faulting; thus, we introduce a more conservative scenario that can be included in a logic tree approach to consider the full spectrum of potential ruptures. Our results can be applied in the framework of probabilistic assessment of fault displacement hazard.