SCEC Award Number 25121 View PDF
Proposal Category Collaborative Research Project (Multiple Investigators / Institutions)
Proposal Title Updating the SCEC Geologic Slip-Rate Database and Assessing Potential Data Gaps
Investigator(s)
Name Organization
Sally McGill California State University, San Bernardino Scott Marshall Appalachian State University Alex Hatem United States Geological Survey
SCEC Milestones A1-1, A1-3 SCEC Groups Geology, CEM, Geodesy
Report Due Date 03/15/2026 Date Report Submitted 03/14/2026
Project Abstract
 This project has added 94 new geologic slip rate estimates from California, Nevada, and northern Mexico to SCEC’s Geologic Slip Rate Database and has updated 5 existing slip rates in the database. All new slip rates were from published peer-reviewed studies or master’s or Ph.D. theses. The online GSRD Explorer is in the process of being updated with these new slip rates and will soon be available for download by geodesists and computational modelers who desire geologic slip rates as input to their models or for comparison to their results. The updated database and GSRD Explorer will be presented at the SCEC UNREST workshop in June 2026 to promote its use and to encourage feedback on its further development and its use for identifying geographic gaps in slip rate data within California. We will work with the SCEC IT and Web teams to update the GSRD homepage and to create a Zenodo archive. Furthermore, the GRSD sets an example of how geological data that is critical for the next generation of earthquake science models can be efficiently organized and served through web-based tools.
Intellectual Merit This work has increased from 340 to 434 the number of Holocene and Pleistocene geologic slip rates that are easily available earthquake modelers, geodesists and geologists via the SCEC GSRD. The results will be presented at the SCEC UNREST workshop in June 2026, where it will support discussions of geographic gaps in slip rate data. It will also be presented at the annual SCEC meeting in 2026. We hope that this database will inspire other geologists to create additional well-organized databases to provide critical information to a range of SCEC-focused efforts.
Broader Impacts This project supported three undergraduate students who gained experience conducting literature searches to seek new slip rate studies that were not previously included in the SCEC GSRD. We also hope that this database will be the first of other critical geological databases that will serve a wide range of SCEC community needs.
Project Participants PIs: Sally McGill, Scott Marshall, Alex Hatem. Three students from CSUSB. We have also worked with Mei-Hui Su on the GSRD Explorer and will work with Edric Pauk and Tran Huynh on web updates and the Zenodo archive.
Exemplary Figure Figure 2: Map of GSRD sites in the latest 2026.03 release. Sites that have been added or updated are shown with red circles with unchanged sites in blue squares. Note that locations above 39.58 latitude were not evaluated due to limited resources and the surprisingly large number of new sites identified.
Linked Publications

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