Simulation of Ground Motion and Synthetic Seismograms. The 1908 Messina Earthquake.

We design a numerical algorithm for wave simulation in anelastic media in the presence of free surface, which can be used to model seismic waves at the Earth's surface. The modeling simulates 3-D waves by using the Fourier and Chebyshev methods to compute the spatial derivatives along the horizontal and vertical directions, respectively. The stress-strain relation is based on the Kelvin-Voigt mechanical model, which has the advantage of not requiring additional field variables. The model is based on two anelastic parameters and twice the spatial derivatives of the lossless case. The methodology is illustrated by simulating the Messina 1908 earthquake.