Seismic Hazard Assessment
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Seismic Hazard Assessment March 2011 Prepared by: AMEC Geomatrix, Inc. NWMO DGR-TR-2011-20 Seismic Hazard Assessment March 2011 Prepared by: AMEC Geomatrix, Inc. NWMO DGR-TR-2011-20 Seismic Hazard Assessment - ii - March 2011 THIS PAGE HAS BEEN LEFT BLANK INTENTIONALLY Seismic Hazard Assessment - iii - March 2011 Document History Title: Seismic Hazard Assessment Report Number: NWMO DGR-TR-2011-20 Revision: R000 Date: March 2011 AECOM Canada Ltd. Prepared by: B. Youngs (AMEC Geomatrix, Inc.) Reviewed by: G. Atkinson (University of Western Ontario) Approved by: R.E.J. Leech Nuclear Waste Management Organization Reviewed by: T. Lam Accepted by: M. Jensen Seismic Hazard Assessment - iv - March 2011 THIS PAGE HAS BEEN LEFT BLANK INTENTIONALLY Seismic Hazard Assessment - v - March 2011 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This report develops design ground motions for Ontario Power Generation’s (OPG) proposed Deep Geologic Repository (DGR) project at the Bruce nuclear site in the Municipality of Kincardine, Ontario. One important aspect of site evaluation is the assessment of the earthquake ground motions that could occur during the design/service life of the DGR. To provide adequate protection for the public and the environment, the DGR would be designed to withstand the effects of very rare events, including the occurrence of strong earthquake ground shaking at the site. A probabilistic seismic hazard assessment (PSHA) was conducted for the DGR that incorporates uncertainties in the models and parameters that affect seismic hazard. Guidance on conducting a PSHA, with the goal of capturing the knowledge of the informed scientific community regarding the inputs to the analysis, was provided in a landmark report by the Senior Seismic Hazard Advisory Committee (SSHAC). In the PSHA for the Bruce nuclear site, the interpretations of the larger scientific community were incorporated by way of review of the available literature, as well as correspondence with researchers to obtain unpublished data and observations in a SSHAC Level 2 process. The study for the Bruce nuclear site builds on both the 1997 PSHA sponsored by the Atomic Energy Control Board to characterize seismic hazards in southern Ontario and a recent PSHA conducted for the region surrounding the Darlington nuclear site for OPG. In the PSHA for the Bruce nuclear site, future earthquakes that may affect the site are modeled using seismic sources. Seismic source characterization provides a probabilistic model for the rate of occurrence, spatial distribution, and size distribution of earthquakes within the region surrounding the site. The Bruce nuclear site lies in the stable continental region of eastern North America in an area of low, diffuse seismicity with no identified active faults. In such regions the primary data set used to develop a probabilistic model is the catalogue of regional earthquakes. The earthquake catalogue is limited by the duration of the sample (a few hundred years), and imperfect recording of past events, particularly in the period before the development of modern seismic monitoring networks. Thus, interpretations of other data, guided by scientific knowledge of the earthquake process, are used to extend the earthquake catalogue data to model the future occurrence of potentially damaging earthquakes in the site region. To do so, alternative models for the spatial distribution of future earthquakes are constructed based on interpretations of regions of the earth’s crust that have homogeneous properties. These regions represent seismic sources in a PSHA. The seismic source model developed for the Bruce nuclear site consists primarily of large regional seismic source zones used to model the occurrence of distributed earthquake activity. Uncertainty in characterizing the spatial distribution of future earthquakes within these sources was incorporated by the use of alternative source zone boundaries and spatial distribution models. In addition, the probabilistic model included a number of specific geologic/geophysical features that have been proposed in the scientific literature as potential active seismic sources. Most of these are located near the western end of Lake Ontario, but two of these, the Grenville Front tectonic zone and the Georgian Bay linear zone, extend closer to the site. A key uncertainty in the assessment of these potential local seismic sources is whether or not a source is seismogenic, defined as active and capable of generating moderate-to-large earthquakes. Multiple criteria, which include spatial association with seismicity and geologic evidence for brittle slip in the present stress/tectonic regime, are used to assess the probability that a source is seismogenic. The results of the PSHA conducted for the Bruce nuclear site provide uniform hazard response spectra (UHRS) at the surface for a reference hard rock site. The UHRS were calculated for Seismic Hazard Assessment - vi - March 2011 annual exceedance frequencies (AEF) in the range of 10-2 to 10-8 (return periods of 100 to 108 years). The regional source zones were found to be the dominant contributors to the hazard. The contribution of individual assessments to the uncertainty for various components in the seismic hazard computation was also examined. The results indicated that selection of the appropriate ground motion models is the largest contributor to the uncertainty in seismic hazard. The results of the PSHA are generally consistent with values published in the 2005 National Building Code of Canada (NBCC) when corrected to a common site condition and accounting for the differences in the selected ground motion models used in the two studies. The result of the PSHA indicate that the estimated ground motions at the surface on hard rock are expected to be less than 1.0g for annual exceedance frequencies of 10-5, the reference case, and 10-6, the extreme case. The following table summarized the results of the PSHA. Annual Exceedance Frequency Peak Ground Acceleration on Hard Rock (AEF) (%g) 1/1000 1.7 1/2500* 2.7 1/100,000 18.7 1/1,000,000 60.6 Note: * AEF for 2005 NBCC Completion of the development of design ground motions involved translating the reference hard rock PSHA results to appropriate horizons within the proposed DGR in a manner that preserves the probabilistic levels assigned to each UHRS. A probabilistic model for site response was developed utilizing measured dynamic properties of the site geologic units. This model was then used to develop UHRS at the DGR level (depth 680 m) and at seven selected reference horizon levels between the surface and the repository. In addition UHRS were developed for the ground surface for three representative site conditions which reflect differences in the amount of surficial material that may be removed. These UHRS are provided for both horizontal and vertical motions. The final task was to develop design time histories for the DGR and selected horizon levels. In order to represent the hazard with realistic earthquake motions, three earthquake scenarios were developed to represent the range of earthquakes contributing to the site hazard. Acceleration time histories were then spectrally matched to response spectra for these scenario earthquakes. The envelope of the response spectra for the three scenario earthquake time histories provides a good match to the DGR and horizon UHRS. Seismic Hazard Assessment - vii - March 2011 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .............................................................................................................. V 1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................... 1 1.1 OBJECTIVES ........................................................................................................ 1 1.2 DOCUMENT STRUCTURE ................................................................................... 1 2. GENERAL SITE DESCRIPTION AND CHARACTERISTICS .......................................... 3 2.1 SITE LOCATION AND DESCRIPTION ................................................................. 3 2.2 REGIONAL STRUCTURE AND GEOLOGIC HISTORY ....................................... 3 2.2.1 Superior Province ............................................................................................ 11 2.2.2 Southern Province ........................................................................................... 11 2.2.3 Granite Rhyolite Province ............................................................................... 11 2.2.4 East Continent and Midcontinent Rift Systems ............................................... 12 2.2.5 Grenville Province ........................................................................................... 15 2.2.5.1 Grenville Front ....................................................................................... 18 2.2.5.2 Central Metasedimentary Belt Boundary Zone ...................................... 20 2.2.5.3 Composite Arc Belt Boundary Zone ....................................................... 24 2.2.6 St. Lawrence Rift System ................................................................................ 25 2.2.7 Intracratonic Basins ......................................................................................... 28 2.2.8 Penobscot Orogeny ........................................................................................ 29 2.2.9 Taconic Orogeny ............................................................................................. 29 2.2.10 Salinic