Two Case Histories Demonstrating the Effect of Past Earthquakes on Liquefaction Resistance of Silty Sand
Publication: Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 143, Issue 6
Abstract
The paper compares two liquefaction case histories in California: (1) the response of the Wildlife site in the Imperial Valley to the 2010 El-Mayor Cucapah earthquake (, ); and (2) the response of the Treasure Island Fire Station (F.S.) site in the San Francisco Bay area to the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake (, ). Both histories involve silty sand critical layers with nonplastic fines contents, , similar normalized shear wave velocities, , low cone penetration test (CPT) cone penetration resistances, and groundwater tables at essentially the same depth. The corresponding data points plot almost on top of each other on the shear wave velocity field liquefaction charts, which predict liquefaction at both sites. While Treasure Island F.S. did liquefy during the shaking, Wildlife did not and was far from liquefaction as indicated by piezometers at the site. This paper constitutes an attempt to understand the reason for these very different pore pressure responses through a detailed analysis of similarities and differences between the two histories. It is concluded that preshaking by previous earthquakes is the most probable explanation of the higher liquefaction resistance exhibited by the Wildlife site and other sites in the Imperial Valley. While the Wildlife critical layer was subjected to about 60–70 earthquakes capable of generating significant excess pore pressures between its estimated 1907 deposition and the 2010 earthquake, the Treasure Island F.S. layer was subjected to only about two earthquakes capable of doing so between deposition in the 1930’s and the 1989 earthquake. This difference is due to the very high seismic activity in the last 100-plus years in the Imperial Valley compared with a seismically quiet San Francisco Bay Area after the 1906 earthquake. The significance of the prior seismic history is corroborated by recent results from centrifuge and large-scale experiments. These results as well as the methodology developed in the paper may be helpful when analyzing the observed high liquefaction resistance of sandy sites located in other seismic regions.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
The authors want to acknowledge the California Department of Fish and Wildlife that provides access to the monitoring site at the Wildlife Liquefaction Array. The NEES@UCSB field site facility received support from the George E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation program through CMS-0217421 and CMMI-0927178. The California Geological Surveys’ Strong Motion Instrumentation Program (CSMIP) provided the ground motion observations for the Treasure Island site, and the U.S. Geological Survey National Strong Motion Instrumentation project (NSMP) provided the 1987 ground motion and pore pressure observations from the Wildlife Site. The authors also want to thank Professor R. Andrus for useful discussions about the effects of geologic age, preshaking and liquefaction, Dr. T. Holzer for his help in clarifying the types of soil deposition at the Wildlife and Treasure Island sites, and Professor S. Thevanayagam for his contribution to the experimental results included in Fig. 9.
References
Abdoun, T., et al. (2013). “Centrifuge and large scale modeling of seismic pore pressures in sands: A cyclic strain interpretation.” J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng., 139(8), 1215–1234.
Anderson, D. G., and Stokoe, K. H. (1978). “Shear modulus: A time-dependent soil property.”, ASTM, Baltimore.
Andrus, R. D., and Stokoe, K. H. (2000). “Liquefaction resistance of soils from shear-wave velocity.” J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng., 126(11), 1015–1025.
Andrus, R. D., Stokoe, K. H., Chung, R. M., and Juang, C. H. (2003). “Guidelines for evaluating liquefaction resistance using shear wave velocity measurement and simplified procedures.” U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Materials and Construction Research Division, Gaithersburg, MD.
Arango, I., Lewis, M. R., and Kramer, C. (2000). “Updated liquefaction potential analysis eliminates foundation retrofitting of two critical structures.” Soil Dyn. Earthquake Eng., 20(1-4), 17–25.
Arango, I., and Migues, R. E. (1996). “Investigation of the seismic liquefaction of old sand deposits.”, Bechtel Corp., San Francisco.
ASCE. (2010). “Minimum design loads for buildings and other structures.”, Reston, VA.
ATC. (2005). “San Francisco’s earthquake risk.” Applied Technology Council, Redwood City, CA.
Baldi, G., Bellotti, R., Ghionna, V., Jamiolkowski, M., and Pasqualini, E. (1981). “Cone resistance in dry normally and overconsolidated sands.” Proc., GED Session on Cone Penetration Testing and Experience, ASCE National Convention, St. Louis.
Bennett, M. J., McLaughlin, P. V., Sarmiento, J. S., and Youd, T. L. (1984). “Geotechnical investigations of liquefaction sites, Imperial Valley, California.”, U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, CA.
Bierschwale, J. G., and Stokoe, K. H. (1984). “Analytical evaluation of liquefaction potential of sands subjected to the 1981 Westmorland earthquake.”, Civil Engineering Dept., Univ. of Texas, Austin, TX.
Bommer, J. J., Douglas, J., and Strasser, F. O. (2003). “Style-of-faulting in ground-motion prediction equations.” Bull. Earthquake Eng., 1(2), 171–203.
Bonilla, M. G. (1960). “Landslides in the San Francisco south quadrangle.”, U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, CA.
Boulanger, R. W., and Idriss, I. M. (2014). “CPT and SPT based liquefaction triggering procedures.”, Center for Geotechnical Modeling, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Univ. of California, Davis, CA.
Brady, A. G., Mark, P. N., Seekins, L. C., and Switzer, L. C. (1989). “Processed strong-motion records from the Imperial Wildlife liquefaction array, Imperial County, California, recorded during the Superstition Hills earthquakes, November 24, 1987.”, U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, CA.
CESMD. (2016). “Center for engineering strong motion data.” ⟨http://strongmotioncenter.org/⟩ (Jan. 16, 2016).
Cetin, K. O., et al. (2004). “Standard penetration test-based probabilistic and deterministic assessment of seismic soil liquefaction potential.” J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng., 1314–1340.
Cox, B. R. (2006). “Development of direct test method for dynamically assessing the liquefaction resistance of soils in situ.” Ph.D. thesis, Univ. of Texas, Austin, TX.
Cox, B. R., et al. (2013). “Liquefaction at strong motion stations in the 2011 great east Japan earthquake with an emphasis in Urayasu City.” Earthquake Spectra, 29(S1), S55–S8.
Darendeli, M. B. (2001). “Development of a new family of normalized modulus reduction and material damping curves.” Ph.D. thesis, Univ. of Texas, Austin, TX.
de Alba, P., Benoit, J., Pass, D. G., Carter, J. J., Youd, T. L., and Shakal, A. F. (1994). “Deep instrumentation array at the Treasure Island naval station.”, R. D. Borcherdt, ed., U.S. Goverment Printing Office, Washington, DC.
Dobry, R., et al. (2000). “New site coefficients and site classification system used in recent building code provisions.” Earthquake Spectra, 16(1), 41–67.
Dobry, R. (2010). “Comparison between clean sand liquefaction charts based on penetration resistance and shear wave velocity.” Proc., 5th Int. Conf. on Recent Advances in Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering and Soil Dynamics and Symp. in Honor of Prof. I. M. Idriss, Missouri Univ. of Science and Technology, Rolla, MO.
Dobry, R., and Abdoun, T. (2015a). “An investigation into why liquefaction charts work: A necessary step toward integrating the states of art and practice.” J. Soil Dyn. Earthquake Eng., 68, 40–56.
Dobry, R., and Abdoun, T. (2015b). “Cyclic shear strain needed for liquefaction triggering and assessment of overburden pressure factor .” J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng., .
Dobry, R., Abdoun, T., Stokoe, K. II, Moss, R., Hatton, M., and El Ganainy, H. (2015c). “Liquefaction potential of recent fills versus natural sands located in high-seismicity regions using shear-wave velocity.” J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng., .
Dobry, R., Baziar, M. H., O’Rourke, T. D., Roth, B. L., and Youd, T. L. (1992). “Liquefaction and ground failure in the Imperial Valley during the 1979, 1981 and 1987 earthquakes.” Case studies of liquefaction and lifeline performance during past earthquakes, T. D. O’Rourke and M. Hamada, eds., National Center for Earthquake Engineering Research, Buffalo, NY.
Dobry, R., Ladd, R. S., Yokel, F. Y., Chung, R. M., and Powell, D. (1982). “Prediction of pore water pressure buildup and liquefaction of sands during earthquakes by the cyclic strain method.”, National Bureau of Standards, Gaithersburg, MD.
Dobry, R., Stokoe, K. H., Ladd, R. S., and Youd, T. L. (1981). “Liquefaction susceptibility from s-wave velocity.” Proc., ASCE National Convention, In Situ Tests to Evaluate Liquefaction Susceptibility, ASCE, New York.
Dobry, R., Thevanayagam, S., El-Sekelly, W., and Abdoun, T. (2015d). “Large scale testing of effect of earthquake preshaking history on the liquefaction resistance of a hydraulic filled clean sand.” in press.
EERI (Earthquake Engineering Research Institute). (1990). “Loma Prieta earthquake reconnaissance report.” Oakland, CA.
El-Sekelly, W. (2014). “The effect of seismic pre-shaking history on the liquefaction resistance of granular soil deposits.” Ph.D. dissertation, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY.
El-Sekelly, W., Abdoun, T., and Dobry, R. (2016a). “Liquefaction resistance of a silty sand deposit subjected to preshaking followed by extensive liquefaction.” J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng., .
El-Sekelly, W., Dobry, R., Abdoun, T., and Steidl, J. H. (2016b). “Centrifuge modeling of the effect of preshaking on the liquefaction resistance of silty sand deposits.” J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng., .
Faris, J. and de Alba, P. (2000). “National geotechnical experimentation site at Treasure Island, California.” National geotechnical experimentation sites, ASCE, Reston, VA.
Felzer, K. R., and Cao, T. (2008). “WGCEP historical California earthquake catalog, appendix H in 2007 working group on California earthquake probabilities, the uniform California earthquake rupture forecast, version 2 (UCERF2).”, USGS, Menlo Park, CA.
Field, E. H., et al. (2013). “Uniform California earthquake rupture forecast, version 3 (UCERF3)—The time-independent model.”, USGS, Menlo Park, CA.
Finn, W. D. L. (1981). “Liquefaction potential: Developments since 1976.” Proc., Int. Conf. on Recent Advances in Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering and Soil Dynamics, Missouri Univ. of Science and Technology, Rolla, MO.
Finn, W. D. L., Bransby, P. L., and Pickering, D. J. (1970). “Effect of strain history on liquefaction of sand.” J. Soil Mech. Found. D., 96(SM6), 1917–1934.
Fuhriman, M. D. (1993). “Crosshole seismic tests at two northern California sites affected by the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake,” M.S. thesis, Univ. of Texas, Austin, TX.
Gonzalez-Ortega, A., et al. (2014). “El Mayor-Cucapah (Mw 7.2) earthquake: Early near-field postseismic deformation from InSAR and GPS observations.” J. Geophys. Res., 119(2), 1482–1497.
Hauksson, E. J., et al. (2013). “Report on the August 2012 Brawley earthquake swarm in Imperial Valley, southern California.” Seismol. Res. Lett., 84(2), 177–189.
Hayati, H., and Andrus, R. D. (2008). “Liquefaction potential map of Charleston, South Carolina based on the 1886 earthquake.” J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng., 815–828.
Hayati, H., and Andrus, R. D. (2009). “Updated liquefaction resistance correction factors for aged sands.” J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng., 1683–1692.
Heidari, T., and Andrus, R. D. (2012). “Liquefaction potential assessment of pleistocene beach sands near Charleston, South Carolina.” J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng., 1196–1208.
Holzer, T. L., and Youd, T. L. (2007). “Liquefaction, ground oscillation, and soil deformation at the Wildlife array, California.” Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am., 97(3), 961–976.
Holzer, T. L., Youd, T. L., and Hanks, T. C. (1989). “Dynamics of liquefaction during the 1987 Superstition Hills, California, earthquake.” Science, 244(4900), 56–59.
Hutton, K., Woessner, J., and Hauksson, E. (2010). “Earthquake monitoring in southern California for seventy years (1932–2008).” Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am., 100(2), 423–446.
Idriss, I. M. (1990). “Response of soft soil sites during earthquakes.” Proc. H. Bolton Seed Memorial Symp., Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA.
Idriss, I. M., and Boulanger, R. W. (2008). “Soil liquefaction during earthquakes.”, Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, Oakland, CA.
Ishihara, K. (1981). “Pore water pressure rises during earthquakes.” Proc., Int. Conf. on Recent Advances of Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering and Soil Dynamics, Missouri Univ. of Science and Technology, Rolla, MO.
Ishihara, K. (1985). “Stability of natural deposits during earthquakes.” Proc., 11th Int. Conf. on Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering, A.A. Balkema, Rotterdam, Netherlands.
Ishihara, K., Araki, K., and Bradley, B. A. (2011). “Characteristics of liquefaction-induced damage in the 2011 great east Japan earthquake.” Proc., Int. Conf. on Geotechnics for Sustainable Development–Geotec (Keynote Lecture), Fecon Corporation, Hanoi, Vietnam.
Johnson, C. E., and Hadley, D. M. (1976). “Tectonic implications of the Brawley earthquake swarm, Imperial Valley, California, January 1975.” Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am., 66(4), 1133–1144.
Johnson, C. E., and Hill, D. P. (1982). “Seismicity of the Imperial Valley.”, U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC.
Kayen, R. R., et al. (2013). “Shear wave velocity-based probabilistic and deterministic assessment of seismic soil liquefaction potential.” J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng., 407–419.
Kokusho, T., Y., Yoshida, and Y., Esashi (1982). “Dynamic properties of soft clay for wide strain range.” Soils Found., 22(4), 1–18.
Liao, Y., and Meneses, J. (2013). “Engineering characteristics of ground motion records from the 2010 Mw 7.2 El Mayor-Cucupah earthquake in Mexico.” Earthquake Spectra, 29(1), 177–205.
Liu, N., and Mitchell, J. K. (2006). “Effects of nonplastic fines on shear wave velocity based liquefaction procedures.” J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng., 1091–1097.
Mitchell, J. K., and Solymar, Z. V. (1984). “Time-dependent strength gain in freshly deposited or densified sand.” J. Geotech. Eng., 1559–1576.
NRC (National Research Council). (1985). Liquefaction of soils during earthquakes, R. V. Whitman, ed., National Academy Press, Washington, DC.
Olsen, K. B., Archuleta, R. J., and Matarese, J. R. (1995). “Three-dimensional simulation of a magnitude 7.75 earthquake on the San Andreas fault in southern California.” Science, 270(5242), 1628–1632.
Pass, D. (1994). “Soil Characterization of the deep accelerometer site at Treasure Island, San Francisco, California.” M.S. thesis, Univ. of New Hampshire, Durham, NH.
Petersen, M. D., et al. (2008). “Documentation for the 2008 update of the United States national seismic hazard maps.”, U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, VA.
Porcella, R. L., Etheredge, E., Maley, R., and Switzer, J. (1987). “Strong-motion data from the Superstition Hills earthquakes 0154 and 1315 (GMT), Nov. 24, 1987.”, U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, CA.
Power, M. S., Egan, J. A., Shewdridge, S. E., deBecker, J., and Faris, J. R. (1998). “Analysis of liquefaction-induced damage on Treasure Island.”, U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, CA.
Press, F., and Siever, R. (1978). Earth, 2nd Ed., W.H. Freeman and Co., San Francisco.
Pyke, R. (2003). “Discussion of ‘Liquefaction resistance of soils: Summary report from the 1996 NCEER and 1998 NCEER/NSF workshops on evaluation of liquefaction resistance of soils’ by Youd, T. L. et al. (2001).” J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng., 283–284.
Rockwell, T., and Klinger, Y. (2013). “Surface rupture and slip distribution of the 1940 Imperial Valley earthquake, Imperial Fault, Southern California: Implications for rupture segmentation and dynamics.” Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am., 103(2A), 629–640.
Salgado, R., Boulanger, R. W., and Mitchell, J. K. (1997). “Lateral stress effects on CPT liquefaction resistance correlations.” J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng., 726–735.
Salgado, R., Mitchell, J. K., and Jamiolkowski, M. (1998). “Calibration chamber size effect on the penetration resistance of sand.” J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng., 878–888.
Schmertmann, J. H. (1991). “The mechanical aging of soils.” J. Geotech. Eng., 1288–1330.
Seed, H. B. (1979). “Soil liquefaction and cyclic mobility evaluation for level ground during earthquakes.” J. Geotech. Eng. Div., 105(GT2), 201–255.
Seed, H. B., and Idriss, I. M. (1970). “Soil moduli and damping factors for dynamic response analyses.”, Earthquake Engineering Research Center, Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA.
Seed, H. B., and Idriss, I. M. (1971). “Simplified procedure for evaluating soil liquefaction potential.” J. Soil Mech. Found. Div., 97(SM9), 1249–1273.
Seed, H. B., Mori, K., and Chan, C. K. (1977). “Influence of seismic history on liquefaction of sands.” J. Geotech. Eng. Div., 103(GT4), 257–270.
Steidl, J. H., Civilini, F., and Seale, S. (2014). “What have we learned after a decade of experiments and monitoring at the NEES@UCSB permanently instrumented field sites?” Proc., 10th National Conf. on Earthquake Engineering, Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, Oakland, CA.
Steidl, J. H., and Seale, S. (2010). “Observations and analysis of ground motion and pore pressure at the NEES instrumented geotechnical field sites.” Proc., 5th Int. Conf. on Recent Advances in Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering and Soil Dynamics, San Diego.
Thevanayagam, S., et al. (2009). “Laminar box system for 1-g physical modeling of liquefaction and lateral spreading.” Geotech. Test. J., 32(5), 438–449.
Vucetic, M. (1986). “Pore pressure buildup and liquefaction at level sand sites during earthquakes.” Ph.D. thesis, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY.
Wildlife liquefaction array. (2016). “NEES at UCSB.” ⟨http://www.nees.ucsb.edu/facilities/wla⟩ (Jan. 16, 2016).
Yasuda, S., and Tohno, I. (1988). “Sites of reliquefaction caused by the 1983 Nihonkia-Chubu earthquake.” Soils Found., 28(2), 61–72.
Youd, T. L. (1977). “Packing changes and liquefaction susceptibility.” J. Geotech. Eng. Div., 103(GT8), 918–922.
Youd, T. L., et al. (2001). “Liquefaction resistance of soils: Summary report from the 1996 NCEER and 1998 NCEER/NSF workshops on evaluation of liquefaction resistance of soils.” J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng., 817–833.
Youd, T. L., et al. (2003). “Closure of ‘Liquefaction resistance of soils: Summary report from the 1996 NCEER and 1998 NCEER/NSF workshops on evaluation of liquefaction resistance of soils’ by Youd, T. L. et al. (2001).” J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng., 284–286.
Youd, T. L. (2013). “Discussion of ‘Examination and reevaluation of SPT-based liquefaction triggering case histories’ by Boulanger, R. W., Wilson, D. W., and Idriss, I. M. (2012).” J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng., 1998–2000.
Youd, T. L., and Craven, T. N. (1975). “Lateral stress in sands during cyclic loading.” J. Geotech. Eng. Div., 101(GT2), 217–221.
Youd, T. L., and Hoose, S. N. (1978). “Historic ground failures in Northern California associated with earthquakes.”, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC.
Youd, T. L., Steidl, J. H., and Steller, R. A. (2007). “Instrumentation of the Wildlife liquefaction array.” Proc., Int. Conf. on Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering, Thessaloniki, Greece.
Youd, T. L., and Wieczorek, G. F. (1984). “Liquefaction during the 1981 and previous earthquakes near Westmorland, California.”, U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, CA.
Zeghal, M., and Elgamal, A. W. (1994). “Analysis of site liquefaction using earthquake records.” J. Geotech. Eng., 996–1017.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 143 • Issue 6 • June 2017
Copyright
©2017 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Sep 14, 2015
Accepted: Sep 26, 2016
Published online: Feb 7, 2017
Published in print: Jun 1, 2017
Discussion open until: Jul 7, 2017
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.