SCEC Award Number 12194 View PDF
Proposal Category Collaborative Proposal (Integration and Theory)
Proposal Title A Collaborative Project: Comparison, Validation, and Verification of Earthquake Simulators
Investigator(s)
Name Organization
Terry Tullis Brown University Michael Barall Invisible Software Keith Richards-Dinger University of California, Riverside Steve Ward University of California, Santa Cruz John Rundle University of California, Davis Louise Kellogg University of California, Davis Olaf Zielke GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (Germany) Jim Dieterich University of California, Riverside Fred Pollitz United States Geological Survey Donald Turcotte University of California, Davis
Other Participants
SCEC Priorities 2e, 4e, 3f SCEC Groups WGCEP, EFP, FARM
Report Due Date 03/15/2013 Date Report Submitted N/A
Project Abstract
 Simulators help us understand the mechanics of earthquakes. They help us learn whether aspects of earthquakes may be predictable and, if so, how those predictions might be done. For earthquake simulators to be useful however, they must behave in a manner that has elements of reality. Determining how realistic and useful simulator results might be is a difficult task. Toward this end, this project continues a process of comparison and evaluation of a variety of earthquake simulators to gain a better understanding of which features are common to them all, and which features depend strongly upon variable details of input and assumption.
The efforts of the Earthquake Simulator Group lie in three areas: benchmark test problems, tuning full statewide simulator runs, and comparison of results. In 2012, the Group focused on the production of a special section of Seismological Research Letters (November/December, 2012). The section consisted of five individual papers and two overview/comparison ones.
Intellectual Merit (1) We already have the capacity to make realistic and useful earthquake simulations on a large scale that reproduce much of what seismologists and geologists can tell us about earthquake rupture and recurrence.
(2) Earthquake simulators give us window into the origin of certain earthquake statistics that can be obtained by no better means.
Broader Impacts Many of the results are placed on the web as quicktime movies or YouTube videos. These make perfect material for teaching.
Exemplary Figure Figure 4.

Expanded history of a typical ALLCAL rupture.
Linked Publications

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