2026 SCEC Tandem Training Workshop Report

Bar Oryan, Alice-Agnes Gabriel, Dave A. May, & Yohai Magen

Published July 24, 2026, SCEC Contribution #15671

Advances in geodetic, seismic, and geological observations now capture fault slip in far greater detail than was possible only a couple of decades ago, from slow transient deformation to fluid-driven processes and fault zone complexity. Yet the observational record remains incomplete, and observations alone cannot explain the physical processes that govern the seismic cycle. Physics-based models of Sequences of Earthquakes and Aseismic Slip (SEAS) bridge this gap, and next-generation SEAS models can now incorporate the realistic fault geometries, heterogeneous crust, and realistic tectonic loading that observations reveal. These simulations, however, are technically demanding, and many early-career scientists lack opportunities to develop the numerical modeling and high-performance computing (HPC) skills they require. The 2026 SCEC Tandem Training Workshop brought together 39 participants, primarily graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and early-career scientists, from 22 institutions in 8 countries for an intensive 2.5-day, science-driven, hands-on workshop at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego. Invited talks by Brittany Erickson (University of Oregon), Pierre Romanet (CEREMA/GéoAzur, France), So Ozawa (ERI, University of Tokyo, Japan), and Tom Heaton (Caltech), together with six participant science talks and two poster sessions, connected the training part to the scientific frontiers of earthquake-cycle research. Guided hands-on sessions then trained participants to design, mesh, launch, visualize, and interpret SEAS simulations with Tandem, an open-source HPC code (Uphoff et al., 2023; Gabriel et al., 2026). To make this possible for users at every level, the organizing team built a dedicated computational ecosystem, including HPC access via the Quakeworx Science Gateway, a pre-configured JupyterLab image on the National Data Platform (NPD), and a portable Docker environment, all of which, together with the complete training materials, remain openly available to participants after the workshop. Feedback was strongly positive: the 23 survey responses rated the workshop 4.7/5 for overall value, format, and logistics, and identified the hands-on exercises as the most valuable element.

Citation
Oryan, B., Gabriel, A., May, D. A., & Magen, Y. (2026). 2026 SCEC Tandem Training Workshop Report. , : Statewide California Earthquake Center. https://www.scec.org/events/2026-tandem-training-workshop/