SCEC Award Number 22031 View PDF
Proposal Category Workshop Proposal
Proposal Title Workshop: Crustal Deformation Modeling
Investigator(s)
Name Organization
Brad Aagaard United States Geological Survey Sylvain Barbot University of Southern California Brittany Erickson University of Oregon Matthew Knepley University at Buffalo, The State University of New York Mark Simons California Institute of Technology Charles Williams GNS Science (New Zealand)
Other Participants We anticipate 60-70 participants with about 60% being graduate students and postdocs.
SCEC Priorities 2a, 3f, 1c SCEC Groups SDOT, CXM, Transitions
Report Due Date 03/15/2023 Date Report Submitted 08/15/2022
Project Abstract
 The 2022 Crustal Deformation Modeling Workshop was held June 20–24 at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado. The workshop included two days of tutorials on the use of the open-source software PyLith for crustal deformation modeling followed by three days of science talks and discussions. The workshop focused on three primary themes:
• Earthquake cycle modeling;
• Inversions for fault slip; and
• Faulting, fluids, and surface loading.
The talks highlighted how computational models provide insight into intriguing observations of Earth and planetary behavior. These included (1) earthquake synchronization of rupture patches due to their close proximity to each other, (2) the influence of fault geometry and damage zones on hypocenter depth and rupture propagation, (3) a lack of steady-state faulting behavior due to long time scales for grain size evolution in the mid-crust, (4) crustal deformation due to tidal, hydrological, and atmospheric loads, and (5) plumes of gas and icy particles due to tidal driven faulting on Enceladus (one of Saturn’s moons). The talks also described new computational modeling capabilities for incorporating complex geologic structure into Bayesian inversions for fault slip and efficient implementation of earthquake cycle models using a symmetric interior discontinuous Galerkin method. The complete agenda is available on the Computational Infrastructure for Geodynamic (CIG) website.
Intellectual Merit The talks highlighted how computational models provide insight into intriguing observations of Earth and planetary behavior. These included (1) earthquake synchronization of rupture patches due to their close proximity to each other, (2) the influence of fault geometry and damage zones on hypocenter depth and rupture propagation, (3) a lack of steady-state faulting behavior due to long time scales for grain size evolution in the mid-crust, (4) crustal deformation due to tidal, hydrological, and atmospheric loads, and (5) plumes of gas and icy particles due to tidal driven faulting on Enceladus (one of Saturn’s moons). The talks also described new computational modeling capabilities for incorporating complex geologic structure into Bayesian inversions for fault slip and efficient implementation of earthquake cycle models using a symmetric interior discontinuous Galerkin method.
Broader Impacts Approximately 75% (47) identified as early career researchers, 32% (20) identified as women, 41% (26) identified as White, 40% (25) as Asian or Asian Indian, 10% (6) as Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish, and 3% (2) as Middle Eastern or North African. Our combination of tutorials and science discussions drew very strong participation from graduate students and postdocs. Faculty who participated as graduate students or postdocs in earlier workshops in this series sent their own students and postdocs to this workshop, which demonstrates the long-term value and enthusiasm for our efforts.
Exemplary Figure N/A
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