SCEC Award Number 13110 View PDF
Proposal Category Workshop Proposal
Proposal Title Imaging and Analyzing Southern California’s Active Faults with Lidar: A Joint SCEC/OpenTopography/UNAVCO Short Course
Investigator(s)
Name Organization
Christopher Crosby UNAVCO Ramon Arrowsmith Arizona State University
Other Participants We expect to engage SCEC community members as instructors for specific short course modules. Estimate ~3 quest instructors
SCEC Priorities 4, 2, 1 SCEC Groups Geology, SoSAFE
Report Due Date 12/06/2013 Date Report Submitted N/A
Project Abstract
 Lidar data has become an important tool for earthquake scientists to make detailed observations and model surface evolution. Within the last 7 years, several efforts have been made to collect high-resolution topographic data for active faults (e.g. The B4 project, EarthScope and NCALM projects). These datasets are available freely online through OpenTopography, a NSF funded lidar data distribution portal. The active tectonics community has taken great interest in these exciting datasets, using them to generate new and important insights into earthquake processes in Southern California. OpenTopography, in partnership with SCEC and UNAVCO, hosted a short course at the San Diego Supercomputer Center at UCSD, November 4-6, 2013 to highlight recent research results and provide beginner to intermediate training on airborne and terrestrial lidar technology. The course focused on point cloud and raster-based data processing, and active fault-oriented analysis. The curriculum included modules on fault trace and geomorphic mapping applications, topographic differencing, integration with other geospatial data, and data visualization and analysis approaches. Consistent with previous SCEC-supported lidar short courses in 2009 and 2011, interest in the 2013 course exceeded capacity with 42 applications for 30 course slots (in the end we accepted 33 participants). Course participants were primarily graduate students, with a hand full of faculty, consultants, postdocs, and undergraduates.
Intellectual Merit With over 4500 km2 of recently acquired fault zone lidar available in southern California, and a pool of TLS equipment accessible to the community through UNAVCO, enthusiasm and interest in these data are high. The SCEC lidar short course is timely and focused venue to present advances in analysis techniques and recent results, and to provide a foundation for new community members who wish to incorporate these data into their research. This course helps to develop a community of SCEC scientists, graduate students, and agency and consulting geoscientists who can fully harness the rich community airborne and terrestrial lidar resources currently available to advance SCEC science priorities.
Broader Impacts The SCEC lidar short course provides hands-on training in new geospatial data processing and analysis techniques that are applicable beyond active tectonics applications of lidar. With an emphasis on undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral participants, the short course provides technical training and education to the future geoscience workforce. All materials from the course are also available online where they can be reused by the larger scientific and practitioner communities.
Exemplary Figure See "Exemplary Figure" section of the report.