Reproducing the supershear portion of the 2002 Denali earthquake rupture in laboratory

•Developed scaling principles to conduct laboratory earthquake experiments.•Successfully reproduced the Denali PS10 ground motion.•Opens up potential to study building response for scaled ground motion.

A notable feature of the 2002 Mw7.9 Denali, Alaska, earthquake was that a unique set of near-field seismic ground motion records, at Pump Station 10 (PS10), captured the passage of a supershear rupture followed by what was surmised to be a secondary slip pulse, 'Trailing Rayleigh Pulse' (Dunham and Archuleta, 2004; Mello et al., 2010). Motivated by the unique features contained in these near-field ground motion records, which were obtained only 3km away from the fault, a series of scaled laboratory earthquake experiments was conducted in an attempt to replicate the dominant features of the PS10 ground motion signatures. Particle velocity records bearing a striking similarity to the Denali ground motion records are presented and discussed. The success of the comparison opens up the possibility of routinely generating near source ground motion records in a scaled and controlled laboratory setting that could be of great societal interest towards assessing seismic hazard from large and potentially devastating earthquakes.