Ground motion characteristics of 2007 Niigata-ken Chuetsu-oki earthquake

Strong motion records of 2007 Niigata-ken Chuetsu-oki earthquake were examined in order to evaluate ground motion characteristics of the earthquake. Ground motions observed at Kashiwazaki Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant site were significantly larger than the response spectra evaluated on the basis of Noda et al. (2002), and the level of the ground motion observed at Arahama area (unit 1 - 4 side) was approximately twice as large as that at Ominato area (unit 5 - 7 side). Observation records of the offshore events other than the eathquake were also larger than the response spectra based on Noda et al. (2002), whereas records of the inland events were smaller than those. In addition, these characteristics were also observed in the vicinity of the site through the analysis of the ground motion records obtained by KiK-net.