2026 SCEC Fault Friction Workshop Report

Srisharan Shreedharan, Tamara N. Jeppson, & Heather M. Savage

Published 2026, SCEC Contribution #15673

The 2026 SCEC Cross-Laboratory Benchmarking of Fault Frictional Behavior Workshop on July 21st, 2026 convened a focused, interdisciplinary group of researchers to develop a community-driven strategy for benchmarking fault frictional behavior across experimental laboratories and apparatuses. Experimental rock deformation studies are foundational to earthquake science, yet there currently exists no standardized framework to compare results across labs, which limits the integration of frictional data into community efforts such as the SCEC Community Rheology Model (CRM).

This one-day virtual workshop built on momentum from recent SCEC initiatives and the broader rock deformation community to address this gap. The workshop brought together experimentalists, numerical modelers, and observational seismologists to identify sources of variability in friction measurements, define benchmark problems, and establish shared standards for materials, methods, and data reporting.

Citation
Shreedharan, S., Jeppson, T. N., & Savage, H. M. (2026). 2026 SCEC Fault Friction Workshop Report. , : Statewide California Earthquake Center. https://www.scec.org/events/2026-scec-friction-workshop/