| Abstract: | The use of regional attenuation in computing the local magnitude, ML, from strong motion data gathered at distances less than 100 km may lead to systematic underestimates approaching 0·5 magnitude units (Trifunac & Herak, Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering, 1992, 18, 229-41). The use of the attenuation law Att(Δ), for example, with synthetic estimates of Wood-Anderson seismometer response, during the Loma Preita earthquake, leads to estimates of ML which agree with the surface wave and moment magnitudes, and which are essentially distance-independent. |
