Continued Operation of an Earthquake Strong Motion Accelerograph Network Along the Mexican Subduction Thrust

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The Guerrero Accelerograph Array consists of 30 strong motion accelerograph stations in Guerrero and neighboring states of Mexico. It was installed under NSF grant CEE-82-19432 and has continued to be fully operational through subsequent support from the National Science Foundation, supplemented by support from the Instituto de Ingenieria, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. The array is currently recording accelerograms from 50 to 80 earthquakes each year, and the resulting data set includes records from over 25 significant earthquakes, with four earthquakes having magnitudes 6.9 or greater at close range. Most important, it is located in a mature seismic gap where an earthquake with magnitude up to 8.2 is considered more likely to occur than any at other place in North America. The objectives of the Guerrero array are: (a) To obtain high quality accelerograms from strong shaking caused by magnitude 7.5 to 8 earthquakes along the Mexican subduction thrust; (b) to distribute these data and to use them to predict the strong ground motions from future earthquakes with sufficient precision so as to be useful for engineering applications; and (c) in particular, to address the problem of ground motion on basement rock in a subduction zone environment similar to that found in Alaska, the Pacific Northwest and Puerto Rico. This action is for continued operation of this array; to catalog and distribute any new data recorded; to interpret the accelerograms that have been recorded; and to use the best available methods to attempt to predict the nature of the strong ground motions resulting from anticipated future subduction-zone earthquakes.