Towards fully data driven ground-motion prediction models for Europe

We have used the Artificial Neural Network method (ANN) for the derivation of physically sound, easy-to-handle, predictive ground-motion models from a subset of the Reference database for Seismic ground-motion prediction in Europe (RESORCE). Only shallow earthquakes (depth smaller than 25 km) and recordings corresponding to stations with measured $$V_{s30}$$ properties have been selected. Five input parameters were selected: the moment magnitude $$M_{W}$$ , the Joyner–Boore distance $$R_{JB}$$ , the focal mechanism, the hypocentral depth, and the site proxy $$V_{S30}$$ . A feed-forward ANN type is used, with one 5-neuron hidden layer, and an output layer grouping all the considered ground motion parameters, i.e., peak ground acceleration (PGA), peak ground velocity (PGV) and 5 %-damped pseudo-spectral acceleration (PSA) at 62 periods from 0.01 to 4 s. A procedure similar to the random-effects approach was developed to provide between and within event standard deviations. The total standard deviation ( $$\sigma $$ ) varies between 0.298 and 0.378 (log $$_{10}$$ unit) depending on the period, with between-event and within-event variabilities in the range 0.149–0.190 and 0.258–0.327, respectively. Those values prove comparable to those of conventional GMPEs. Despite the absence of any a priori assumption on the functional dependence, our results exhibit a number of physically sound features: magnitude scaling of the distance dependency, near-fault saturation distance increasing with magnitude, amplification on soft soils and even indications for nonlinear effects in softer soils.