Comment on "Influence of Focal Mechanism in Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis" by Vincenzo Convertito and André Herrero

Abstract : The influence of style-of-faulting on strong ground motions has been the subject of debate for some time. Although some controversy persists, the general consensus is that ground motions produced by reverse faults are higher than those produced by normal faults, whereas motions from strike-slip faults are somewhere in between. In a recent article, Convertito and Herrero (2004) derived a correction factor for focal mechanism to be applied to predictive equations. This issue was previously addressed by Bommer et al. (2003). Although this article is cited by Convertito and Herrero, it seems that its aims and scope were not well understood, and we would therefore like to clarify what the method presented therein entails, especially because we feel that Convertito and Herrero's approach of characterizing focal mechanisms based solely on the radiation pattern is difficult to justify...