Mexico City Basin Effects: Past, Present and Future

Seismic risk in Mexico City governed by site effects. The M8.1 1985 subduction zone earthquake, which caused significant damage and loss of thousands of lives at 350km epicentral distance, has become the quintessential example of the role that site effects can play in modifying the amplitude, frequency and duration of ground shaking; and in aggravating the catastrophic consequences of earthquakes. We here present observations and analyses of the $M_w$ 7.1 September 19, 2017 event that --while triggered by an intraplate rupture at approximately half the epicentral distance of the 1985 event relative to Mexico City-- caused severe structural damage to a few tens of buildings located in a relatively narrow zone between the hill and lake zones of the basin, known as the transition zone. We show that the Mw 7.1 mainshock exposed the vulnerabilities of the pre-1985 building code in the transition zone; but more importantly highlighted the improvement of the 1987 building code revision in terms of the performance of modern high rise buildings that suffered catastrophic consequences during the 1985 Michoácan earthquake sequence. We next analyze several records collected at stations in the basin over the past 20 years, and we highlight the importance of understanding the three dimensional heterogeneity of the basin sediments, the coupling between hydrological setting and site response and the evolution of their characteristics with time, and the energy interaction between the deep basin edge and the shallow clay ‘energy trap’ that gives-- and will continue to give rise to fascinating wave propagation phenomena. Results presented are the collective effort of the GEER teams that were deployed to perform post-earthquake reconnaissance in the affected regions of the epicentral area and in Mexico City.