Summary of the BA18 Ground‐Motion Model for Fourier Amplitude Spectra for Crustal Earthquakes in California

Abstract We present a summary of the Bayless and Abrahamson (2018b) empirical ground‐motion model (GMM) for shallow crustal earthquakes in California based on the Next Generation Attenuation‐West2 database (Ancheta et al., 2014). This model is denoted as BA18. Rather than the traditional response spectrum GMM, BA18 is developed for the smoothed effective amplitude spectrum (EAS), as defined by the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center (Goulet et al., 2018). The EAS is the orientation‐independent horizontal‐component Fourier amplitude spectrum of ground acceleration. The model is developed using a database dominated by California earthquakes but takes advantage of crustal earthquake data worldwide to constrain the magnitude scaling and geometric spreading. The near‐fault saturation is guided by finite‐fault numerical simulations, and nonlinear site amplification is incorporated using a modified version of Hashash et al. (2018). The model is applicable for rupture distances of 0–300 km, M 3.0–8.0, and over the frequency range 0.1–100 Hz. The model is considered applicable for VS30 in the range 180–1500 m/s, although it is not well constrained for VS30 values >1000 m/s. Models for the median and the aleatory variability of the EAS are developed. Regional models for Japan and Taiwan will be developed in a future update of the model. A MATLAB program that implements the EAS GMM is provided in the Ⓔ supplemental content to this article.