2016 SCEC Undergraduate Studies in Earthquake Information Technology (USEIT): Earthquake Magnitude & Event Probability Forecasting

Daniel Ngu, Brady Guan, Mingyan Zhou, Yipeng Li, Jozi K. Pearson, Thomas H. Jordan, Kevin R. Milner, & Mark L. Benthien

Published August 21, 2016, SCEC Contribution #6487, 2016 SCEC Annual Meeting Poster #331

The 2016 Undergraduate Studies in Earthquake Information Technology (USEIT) Probabilistic Forecasting Team created forecasts of large events (magnitude 7+ earthquakes) that will occur in the next week, month, year, and 10 years on the southern San Andreas Fault (sSAF). We use the information from the Uniform California Earthquake Rupture Forecast, Version 3 (UCERF3) report and synthetic catalogs of thousands of years of seismicity from the Rate-State Earthquake Simulator (RSQSim) to find the probability of such large events. Our first task was to tackle a few questions using a previous RSQSim catalog which simulated nearly one million years of seismic activity in California, based on UCERF2 fault data. Using Open Seismic Hazard Analysis (OpenSHA) tools with Java to analyze the catalog, we created a script to process the data. These results would be used to produce probabilistic statistics to aid with the creation of a forecast. Afterwards, we modified the code to process the catalogs from the High-Performance Computing (HPC) Team. The resulting data was used to compare their many RSQSim simulations to a UCERF3 report data set. We determined which catalog had the least difference in the recurrence intervals to the UCERF3 report. The selected catalog was then extended by the HPC team and analyzed by us to estimate recurrence intervals, participation probability, and magnitude probability density distribution of earthquakes that occur on the sSAF, San Jacinto Fault (SJF), and other related faults and region. Using Excel, we graphed the data to visualize our data. Some other tasks we were accountable for determining general probabilities in a set amount of years, conditional probabilities of an earthquake on the sSAF, conditional probabilities of two earthquakes happening on the sSAF, and conditional and directional probabilities of an earthquake occurring on the sSAF and SJF. The visualization of our data is executed using Excel and SCEC-Virtual Display of Objects (VDO), which displays earthquake occurrences through an animation. Our results may be used by future SCEC interns and employees, allowing them the option to either build on our results or use it as a comparison datasheet.

Key Words
Earthquake, Large Events, Probability, Forecast, RSQSim, Simulator, UCERF3

Citation
Ngu, D., Guan, B., Zhou, M., Li, Y., Pearson, J. K., Jordan, T. H., Milner, K. R., & Benthien, M. L. (2016, 08). 2016 SCEC Undergraduate Studies in Earthquake Information Technology (USEIT): Earthquake Magnitude & Event Probability Forecasting. Poster Presentation at 2016 SCEC Annual Meeting.

Related Projects & Working Groups
Communication, Education, and Outreach (CEO)