Earthquake Magnitude Scaling Using Peak Ground Velocity Derived from High-Rate GNSS Observations

Rapid response to destructive tsunami and seismic events requires rapid determination of the earthquake magnitude. We propose a new method that employs peak ground velocities (PGVs) derived from Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) data to estimate earthquake magnitudes. With a total of 1434 records from 22 events as the constraints, we perform the regression and obtain a PGV scaling law for magnitude determination. The advantage of the new method is that the PGVs are extracted from the GNSS velocity waveforms, which can be easily computed using broadcast GNSS ephemeris. In contrast, the peak ground displacement (PGD) depends on a sophisticated high-precision GNSS-processing subject to external correction data, realization of which cannot be kept robust constantly, especially in real time. The results show that the PGV magnitudes agree with reported moment magnitudes with mean absolute deviation of 0.26 magnitude units for the 22 events and also agree well with the PGD magnitude. We further demonstrate that GNSS-derived PGV and the modified Mercalli intensity values can be consistent with their counterparts from the U.S. Geological Survey ShakeMap products and therefore the GNSS-derived PGVs have the potential to be included in the ShakeMap as a complementary constraint, especially in areas with sparse seismic station coverage for large earthquake.