that site-response issues, including nonlinear effects, are not addressed, on the grounds that they can only be incorporated on a site-specific basis.

Chapter 5 is itself a well-written primer on the essentials of ground motion estimation, valid for any region in which earthquakes occur. It begins with basic ground motion measures; provides the fundamentals of magnitude, distance, and site response; and describes the essentials of empirical and theoretical predictions of earthquake ground motion. It explicitly warns against the use of fixed spectral shapes anchored by peak ground acceleration (PGA) alone, and then progresses to a discussion of uncertainty in ground motion predictions. A fourfold decomposition of uncertainty for the Hanks and McGuire (1981) pointsource, stochastic model, the simplest physical model used in these predictive exercises, is demonstrated in this discussion. Readers should study this decomposition carefully (Table 5-1, Section 5.5.1). It is difficult, and, if this example is not well understood, similar attempts at uncertainty decomposition for more sophisticated and parametrically complicated models will be frustrating.

Section 5.7, “Specific Expert-Elicitation Guidance for Obtaining Ground Motion Values,” is based on the results of Workshops I and II, reported in detail in Appendixes A and B. Figure 5-5, reproduced as Figure 2.1 in this report, is intended to guide readers through the process. Regrettably, it is not well keyed to the description in the text.

The comprehensive treatment of ground motion estimation in Appendixes A and B is an important contribution to the SSHAC effort. Workshop I provided for the presentation of four basic ground motion estimation models: (1) intensity-based models presented by M. D. Trifunac, (2) empirical models presented by K. W. Campbell, (3) stochastic or random-vibration models presented by G. M. Atkinson, and (4) the empirical source-function method presented by C. Saikia. These proponents of the models were asked to evaluate the models in the company of 10 additional experts, the “invited participants” listed in Table A-1 of the SSHAC report. The principal result of Workshop I was rejection of intensity-based models for estimating ground motion in the EUS (SSHAC Table A-2). Additional information was collected on the