International audiencen a low‐seismicity context, the use of numerical simulations becomes essential due to the lack of representative earthquakes for empirical approaches. The goals of the EUROSEISTEST Verification and Validation Project (E2VP) are to provide (1) a quantitative analysis of accuracy of the current, most advanced numerical methods applied to realistic 3D models of sedimentary basins (verification) and (2) a quantitative comparison of the recorded ground motions with their numerical predictions (validation). The target is the EUROSEISTEST site located within the Mygdonian basin, Greece. The site is instrumented with surface and borehole accelerometers, and a 3D model of the medium is available. The simulations are performed up to 4 Hz, beyond the 0.7 Hz fundamental frequency, thus covering a frequency range at which ground motion undergoes significant amplification. The discrete representation of material heterogeneities, the attenuation model, the approximation of the free surface, and nonreflecting boundaries are identified as the main sources of differences among the numerical predictions. The predictions well reproduce some, but not all, features of the actual site effect. The differences between real and predicted ground motions have multiple origins: the accuracy of source parameters (location, hypocentral depth, and focal mechanism), the uncertainties in the description of the geological medium (damping, internal sediment layering structure, and shape of the sediment‐basement interface). Overall, the agreement reached among synthetics up to 4 Hz despite the complexity of the basin model, with code‐to‐code differences much smaller than predictions‐to‐observations differences, makes it possible to include the numerical simulations in site‐specific analysis in the 3D linear case and low‐to‐intermediate frequency range

International audienc

No abstract

No abstract

S U M M A R YThe site effects of seismic motion in the metropolitan area of the city of Thessaloniki (Northern Greece) are investigated using a 3-D finite-difference modelling approach. Three different seismic scenarios are assumed with two different focal mechanisms for each one. Standard spectral ratios (SSR) are calculated from 3-D synthetics and compared with the ratios from the recorded motion, as well as ratios obtained from 1-D and 2-D modelling by other researchers. The average SSR curves from the six scenarios are in good agreement with the empirical ones, whereas the SSR results from 3-D modelling are different from those from 1-D modelling, exhibiting higher fundamental frequencies and larger amplification amplitudes, in much better agreement with observed SSR ratios. Comparisons of Fourier amplitude spectra obtained for various scenarios for the broader area of Thessaloniki show considerable dependence of the site effects on the source properties (position, depth and fault-plane solution), as well as on the local structure.