SCEC Award Number 16122 View PDF
Proposal Category Individual Proposal (Data Gathering and Products)
Proposal Title Enhancements to the SCEC CFM: Database and delivery, earthquake simulator formats, and statewide CFM
Investigator(s)
Name Organization
John Shaw Harvard University
Other Participants Andreas Plesch
SCEC Priorities 4a, 4c SCEC Groups USR, Geology
Report Due Date 03/15/2017 Date Report Submitted 03/15/2017
Project Abstract
We continued our efforts to develop a new system for distributing the Community Fault Models (CFM’s) (Plesch et al., 2007; Shaw et al., 2015), and to make a series of improvements that will help support their use in earthquake simulators and a variety of other science and hazard assessment projects. This was a collaborative effort between the lead development team for the CFM at Harvard University and SCEC’s Community Modeling Environment (CME) group, led by Phil Maechling.

Specifically, we:
1) Released a new version of the CFM (5.1) at the 2016 Annual Meeting. This model incorporates significant revisions to fault representations based on refined fault traces, and new hypocentral and focal mechanism catalogs;
2) Continue development of a database for the latest CFM model release (CFM 5.1), which will be used to support implementation of a new relational database and web interface through CME that will allow users to search and access model components;
3) Generated a set of rectilinear (CFM-R) and regularly gridded CFM representations for the most recent CFM model (version 5.1) at resolutions that are targeted by SCEC investigators for fault system modeling and earthquake simulators;
4) Produced a set of fault trace shape files from the latest CFM and Statewide Community Model models, including blind sources, for use maps and other SCEC activities;
5) Made a series of improvements to the Statewide Community Model (SCFM) that were recommended by participants in a 2015 workshop to evaluate the latest model release.
Intellectual Merit This grant represents the primary effort to support and develop the SCEC Community Fault Models (CFM, SCFM) and Unified Structural Representation (USR). A series of improvements to these models help facilitate their use in probabilistic seismic hazards assessments, fault system modeling, tectonic studies, and earthquake simulators. These efforts directly address SCEC priority 4 “Structure and evolution of fault zones and systems: relation to earthquake physics.”
Broader Impacts This work directly addresses SCEC’s primary mission to improve seismic hazards assessment in California by defining the 3D geometry and interaction of active fault systems. This past year we made a series of improvements to these representations. In addition, the project has enhanced the description of 3D velocity structure in the SCEC Unified Structural Representation (USR), with the goal of improving the accuracy of earthquake wave propagation studies and strong ground motion predictions.
Exemplary Figure Figure 3: Perspective view of the Statewide Community Fault Model (SCFM 3.0).