Metrics for Comparing Dynamic Earthquake Rupture Simulations

Michael Barall, & Ruth A. Harris

Published 2015, SCEC Contribution #1951

SRL articles generally don't have abstracts. So in its place, I have copied the first paragraph of the article:

Earthquakes are complex events that involve a myriad of interactions
among multiple geologic features and processes. One of the tools that is available to assist with their study is computer simulation, particularly dynamic rupture simulation. A dynamic rupture simulation is a numerical model of the physical processes that occur during an earthquake. Starting with the
fault geometry, friction constitutive law, initial stress conditions,
and assumptions about the condition and response of the
near-fault rocks, a dynamic earthquake rupture simulation calculates
the evolution of fault slip and stress over time as part of
the elastodynamic numerical solution (Ⓔ see the simulation
description in the electronic supplement to this article). The
complexity of the computations in a dynamic rupture simulation
make it challenging to verify that the computer code
is operating as intended, because there are no exact analytic
solutions against which these codes’ results can be directly compared.
One approach for checking if dynamic rupture computer
codes are working satisfactorily is to compare each
code’s results with the results of other dynamic rupture codes
running the same earthquake simulation benchmark. To perform
such a comparison consistently, it is necessary to have
quantitative metrics. In this paper, we present a new method
for quantitatively comparing the results of dynamic earthquake
rupture computer simulation codes.

Citation
Barall, M., & Harris, R. A. (2015). Metrics for Comparing Dynamic Earthquake Rupture Simulations. Seismological Research Letters, 86(1), 223-235. doi: 10.1785/0220140122.