The basic science goal of Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC) is to understand the physics of the Southern California fault system and encode this understanding in a system-level model that can predict salient aspects of earthquake behavior. Southern California's network of several hundred active faults forms a superb natural laboratory for the study of earthquake physics. Its seismic, geodetic, and geologic data are among the best in the world. Moreover, Southern California contains 23 million people, so that high seismic hazard translates to nearly one-half of the national earthquake risk. The Center's tripartite mission statement emphasizes the connections between information gathering, knowledge formulation through physics-based modeling, and public communication of hazard and risk. An important part of SCEC's mission is to increase the diversity of its scientific workforce; SCEC values diversity in all aspects of its activities. Created in 1991, SCEC has since expanded to 54 institutions involving over 560 scientists. The core institutions, currently 15, are committed to SCEC's mission and offer sustained support for its programs; the participating institutions, currently 39, are self-nominated through their members' participation. The Center is open to any credible scientist from any research institution interested in collaborating on the problems of earthquake science. However, SCEC is structured to achieve prioritized science objectives within the Southern California Natural Laboratory, and resources are allocated accordingly.

Project Report

, 2007-2012 (SCEC3) T. H. Jordan, Principal Investigator Earthquakes pose the greatest natural threat to life and property in California. During the past five years, the SCEC consortium has coordinated over 600 earthquake scientists from more than 60 research institutions worldwide in a research program on (a) how tectonic forces evolve within active fault networks over years to millennia to generate sequences of earthquakes, (b) how forces produce slip on time scales of seconds to minutes when faults rupture during earthquakes, and (c) how seismic waves propagate from the rupture region and cause shaking on the surface of a heterogeneous crust. This basic research has pioneered novel methods for data analysis in seismology, earthquake geology, and tectonic geodesy, and the SCEC collaboration has substantially advanced integrative modeling in earthquake system science. The latter has been enabled by a new cyberinfrastructure for physics-based seismic hazard analysis that comprises a complementary and interactive set of high-performance computational platforms. These vertically integrated platforms are now capable of executing the principal computational pathways of earthquake system science on NSF and other national supercomputers at unprecedented resolution, with outer-scale/inner-scale ratios up to 1017. Through integrated studies of earthquake processes, SCEC has worked with its principal agency partners—the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Geological Survey, and the California Geological Survey—to translate this basic geoscience and computational research into practical products that can reduce seismic risk and improve community resilience to earthquake disasters. A steadily improving series of Uniform California Earthquake Rupture Forecasts (UCERFs) has been developed on the OpenSHA platform by the Working Group on California Earthquake Probabilities (2008, 2012) in response to requests from the California Earthquake Authority and the National Seismic Hazard Mapping Project. The CyberShake ground-motion prediction platform is now capable of running, processing, and archiving the very large suites (~106) of earthquake simulations needed for the probabilistic calculations of physics-based seismic hazard analysis. CyberShake has produced the first comprehensive, simulation-based hazard models for the Los Angeles region. These models are being extended statewide, and they are being coupled to structural models of the built environment developed by NSF’s earthquake engineer research centers, with the goal of achieving a "rupture-to-rafters" simulation capability that will aid in the design of earthquake-resilient communities. Meta-organizations fostered and administered by SCEC, such as the statewide Earthquake Country Alliance and the 60-institution EPIcenters program of informal education, have provided entirely new venues for helping the public understand and deal with seismic risks. SCEC has deepened collaborations among earthquake scientists, and it has extended them to mathematicians who study earthquake statistics, computer and computational scientists who design and execute large-scale simulations, physical scientists who study rock behavior in the laboratory, earthquake engineers who understand hazard in the context of risk, social scientists who understand public behavior in the face of risk, and decision-makers who must forge public policies based on the best available science. One transformative activity that binds together this diverse assemblage of expertise is the Great ShakeOut drills. These annual earthquake preparedness exercises, which have been developed by SCEC and its partners since 2008, now involve millions of people across the United States and in other several other countries, including Canada, New Zealand, Italy, and Japan. Earthquake system science relies on the premise that detailed research on fault systems in different regions can be synthesized into a global, physics-based understanding of earthquake phenomena. SCEC has worked towards this synthesis with a growing set of international partners, comparing well-calibrated regional models in diverse tectonic settings around the world. A successful example is the International Collaboratory for the Study of Earthquake Predictability, founded in 2007, which is evaluating earthquake forecasting models in California, New Zealand, Italy, Japan, and China, as well as on a global scale. SCEC has fostered interdisciplinary interactions among early-career scientists and provided them with new leadership roles. SCEC intern programs have involved over 250 undergraduates in earthquake research, recruiting a diverse set of students into earthquake studies. As a virtual institute, the Center has introduced early-career scientists to interdisciplinary, multi-institutional earthquake system science. It has equipped them with new scientific tools to mitigate earthquake hazards and given them an appreciation of how deep collaborations and international partnerships can be applied in solving global problems.

Agency
National Science Foundation (NSF)
Institute
Division of Earth Sciences (EAR)
Type
Cooperative Agreement (Coop)
Application #
0529922
Program Officer
Gregory J. Anderson
Project Start
Project End
Budget Start
2007-02-01
Budget End
2012-07-31
Support Year
Fiscal Year
2005
Total Cost
$15,035,000
Indirect Cost
Name
University of Southern California
Department
Type
DUNS #
City
Los Angeles
State
CA
Country
United States
Zip Code
90089