SCEC Award Number 17027 View PDF
Proposal Category Collaborative Proposal (Data Gathering and Products)
Proposal Title A Technical Activity Group (TAG) for the Community Fault Model (CFM) to support SCEC science, community model development, and hazard assessment
Investigator(s)
Name Organization
John Shaw Harvard University Craig Nicholson University of California, Santa Barbara
Other Participants Andreas Plesch
SCEC Priorities 1a, 4a, 3a SCEC Groups WGCEP, Geology, CXM
Report Due Date 06/15/2018 Date Report Submitted 06/15/2018
Project Abstract
This project supported continued development of the Community Fault Model (CFM), with a specific emphasis on facilitating use of CFM in new community modeling efforts, fault systems studies and earthquake simulators. The CFM is one of the most mature modeling efforts within SCEC, and has seen widespread use in many aspects of our science, including block modeling, wave propagation studies, and probabilistic hazard assessment. Nevertheless, it remains critical that the CFM continues to be updated, improved, expanded and validated – and that it effectively supports a wider range of community modeling activities in SCEC5. To help facilitate these efforts, this past year we:
1) Released a new version of CFM (5.2), which includes a series of refinements and improvements based on the latest earthquake catalogs and surface trace maps.
2) Completed a metadata spreadsheet for CFM 5.2 implementing a new fault system hierarchy and expanding supporting information about fault representations.
3) Continued working with SCEC CME to improve and implement a database and web-based graphical interface to access the CFM and supporting information, including a dedicated CFM webpage at: https://www.scec.org/research/cfm.
4) Developed regular gridded representations for CFM 5.2 and establish linkages between CFM fault geometry and UCERF3 slip rate information to help support its use in earthquake simulators;
5) Coordinated activities with other community modeling projects in SCEC that will benefit from CFM representations, including the Geologic Framework and Community Rheologic Model.
This project represents a collaborative effort between the lead CFM development teams at Harvard University and UC Santa Barbara.
Intellectual Merit As repeatedly acknowledged, the Community Fault Model (CFM) and its associated fault database is a crucial component of SCEC. It is critical to many SCEC activities, research objectives, program elements, and science initiatives. This is particularly true for new community modeling efforts (like CRM, CSM, CTM and the 3D Geological Framework) and fundamental SCEC science objectives related to fault system studies and seismic hazard assessment (e.g., UCERF3). This project help support continued development of the CFM by updating, improving, expanding and enhancing the CFM fault database, increasing access and availability to the most recent CFM 3D fault set (Version 5.2), providing regularly meshed CFM surfaces to facilitate use in earthquake simulator modeling, and continuing to coordinate with the SCEC CME and other active community modeling efforts on useful enhancements to the CFM. Besides providing more accurate and realistic 3D fault representations critical to the proper understanding and modeling of dynamic earthquake rupture propagation in southern California, an important contribution to SCEC's studies of fault system science was the implementation within CFM of a new hierarchical fault name and numbering scheme that allows for grouping of individual faults as part of larger, geometrically or kinematically linked fault systems. This enables CFM users to access and assess the context and full richness of fault systems, 3D fault models, and alternative 3D fault representations in the CFM, and provides a basis for a more expansive view of the potential for complex fault interactions and multi-fault earthquake ruptures.
Broader Impacts The main purpose of this project was to expand, improve and enhance the availability and accessibility of the SCEC CFM, and as a consequence, the broader impacts of CFM in a wider range of earthquake science initiatives, community modeling efforts, and related student research activities. Implementation of the new, dedicated SCEC CFM webpage provides easy access to the digital CFM 3D fault set of complex fault representations, allowing for comparative studies of such complex fault systems on a more global basis. At Harvard and UCSB, this project continued to support and encourage the use of state-of-the-art interactive facilities and software for the 3D visualization, anlaysis, interpretation and modeling of complex fault representations and underlying datasets -- facilities and software that help promote research and education in complex earth system science and earthquake investigations with the ultimate goal of improved earthquake hazard assessment and risk mitigation.
Exemplary Figure Figure 3: New, dedicated SCEC CFM webpage at: https://www.scec.org/research/cfm.