The seismic signatures of the 2009 Shiaolin landslide in Taiwan

Abstract. The Shiaolin landslide occurred on 9 August 2009 after Typhoon Morakot struck Taiwan, claiming over 400 lives. The seismic signals produced by the landslide were recorded by broadband seismic stations in Taiwan. The time-frequency spectra for these signals were obtained by the Hilbert-Huang transform (HHT) and were analyzed to obtain the seismic characteristics of the landslide. Empirical mode decomposition (EMD) was applied to differentiate weak surface-wave signals from noise and to estimate the surface-wave velocities in the region. The surface-wave velocities were estimated using the fifth intrinsic mode function (IMF 5) obtained from the EMD. The spectra of the earthquake data were compared. The main frequency content of the seismic waves caused by the Shiaolin landslide were in the range of 0.5 to 1.5 Hz. This frequency range is smaller than the frequency ranges of other earthquakes. The spectral analysis of surface waves (SASW) method is suggested for characterizing the shear-wave velocities of the strata in the region.