SCEC Award Number 24093 View PDF
Proposal Category Collaborative Research Project (Multiple Investigators / Institutions)
Proposal Title Expanding the SCEC CVM Statewide with New Models and Web Tools
Investigator(s)
Name Organization
Clifford Thurber University of Wisconsin, Madison Scott Marshall Appalachian State University Philip Maechling University of Southern California
SCEC Milestones A1-1 SCEC Groups CEM, Seismology, PBS
Report Due Date 03/15/2025 Date Report Submitted 03/14/2025
Project Abstract
 The expansion of the Southern California Earthquake Center to the Statewide California Earthquake Center (SCEC) compels the expansion of Community Earth Models (CEM) to encompass all of California as well as western Nevada. There are several existing seismic velocity models that we are incorporating into the UCVM platform for use in ground motion simulations. We focused on the Thurber et al. (2009) 3D Vp model for northern California, Lin et al. (2010) statewide 3D Vp and Vs models, Doody et al. (2023) CANVAS Western US 3D Vp and Vs models, and Guo et al. (2025) San Francisco Bay area 3D Vp and Vs models. As most velocity models have differing data formats, we focused significant effort on writing conversion codes so all models can be directly ingested into the UCVM platform. We have also developed a web-based visualization and extraction tool, the CVM Explorer, building on the software that drives the existing SCEC community model web viewers, but adding in new and improved plotting functionality. The CVM Explorer gives users access to numerous velocity models in a simple, intuitive web-based interface with no special software required, all with a look and feel similar to the other existing SCEC community model tools. The CVM Explorer creates professional quality plots that can be downloaded in vector graphics pdf format or rasterized png format. We hope that the CVM Explorer will significantly lower the bar of entry for non-expert users that want to quickly extract and visualize data from a range of models.
SCEC Community Models Used Community Velocity Model (CVM)
Usage Description Our work involved adding new models to the UCVM archive and developing a web-based tool for visualizing and exporting any of the models in the UCVM archive.
Intellectual Merit We have begun adding 3D seismic velocity models to the SCEC CEM/UCVM archive to expand the region for which such models are available to Northern California and by adding models with higher resolution in critical areas, such as the San Francisco Bay region.
Broader Impacts We have lowered the bar for new or inexperienced users of seismic velocity models to access, visualize, and export models for use in their research by creating a user-friendly web-based tool for this purpose.
Project Participants Clifford Thurber, UW-Madison, PI
Scott Marshall, Appalachian State University
Mei Su, SCEC
Phil Maechling, SCEC
Manochehr Bahavar, EarthScope Consortium - assisted with submitting California region velocity models into the Earth Model Consortium Archive
Exemplary Figure Figure 2.
Screenshots of the updated CVM Explorer (left) and the plotting interface (right) showing a visualization of a horizontal slice through the San Francisco Bay CVM of Aagaard & Hirakawa (2021). The plotting interface allows users to replot data that has already been extracted with several user-selectable options. The final plots can be exported as high resolution png raster images or vectorized pdf files. Data, once extracted can now be downloaded in simple csv format for users to use in their own workflows.
No particular credits.
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