Back-analysis of an important sand liquefaction event triggered by the 1870 Charlevoix earthquake, Quebec, Canada

Didier Perret, Pascal Locat, André Pugin, Antony Gagné

In the proceedings of: GeoEdmonton 2018: 71st Canadian Geotechnical Conference; 13th joint with IAH-CNC

Session: Landslides and Geohazards II (Liquefiable Soils)

ABSTRACT: Unlike high-seismicity regions such as California, Japan or New Zealand, only a few cases of soil liquefaction have been reported historically in the northeastern United States and eastern Canada, where moderate-to-large earthquakes capable of triggering liquefaction are much less frequent. This paper is aimed at documenting one of these liquefaction events, which was triggered in 1870 in the Charlevoix region, Quebec, by an earthquake with a moment magnitude estimated to be in the range 5.8-6.5. Uncertainties in dynamic site response analyses are accounted for by considering four seismic scenarios and several soil resistance profiles obtained from field penetration testing inside and outside the liquefaction zone. For each scenario, synthetic ground motions generated with a stochastic finite-fault model were used to simulate sites response. Results suggest that the most likely scenario for liquefaction triggering was an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.5 at a distance less than or equal to about 10 km.

RÉSUMÉ: À la différence des régions de forte sismicité, comme la Californie, le Japon ou la Nouvelle-Zélande, seuls quelques cas de liquéfaction de sable ont été répertoriés historiquement dans le nord-est des États-ù les séismes sont moins fréquents mais peuvent être néanmoins très forts. ces cas de liquéfaction provoqué en 1870 dans la région de Charlevoix au Québec par un séisme dont la magnitude a été estimée à 5.8-6.5. Les incertitudes dans les analyses de réponse de site sont prises en compte en considérant quatre scénarios sismiques et plusieurs profils de résistance de pénétration in-situ des accélérogrammes synthétiques générés à nse des terrains. Les résultats montrent que le scénario km ou moins.

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Cite this article:
Didier Perret; Pascal Locat; André Pugin; Antony Gagné (2018) Back-analysis of an important sand liquefaction event triggered by the 1870 Charlevoix earthquake, Quebec, Canada in GEO2018. Ottawa, Ontario: Canadian Geotechnical Society.

@article{geo2018Paper587,author = Didier Perret; Pascal Locat; André Pugin; Antony Gagné,title = Back-analysis of an important sand liquefaction event triggered by the 1870 Charlevoix earthquake, Quebec, Canada ,year = 2018}