SCEC Award Number 17038 View PDF
Proposal Category Collaborative Proposal (Data Gathering and Products)
Proposal Title Collaboration to Construct a SCEC Community Paleoseismic Model
Investigator(s)
Name Organization
Glenn Biasi University of Nevada, Reno Thomas Rockwell San Diego State University Katherine Scharer United States Geological Survey Timothy Dawson California Department of Conservation
Other Participants
SCEC Priorities 5c, 5d, 1d SCEC Groups CXM, SAFS, CISM
Report Due Date 06/15/2018 Date Report Submitted 06/25/2018
Project Abstract
 The project objective is to develop and construct a paleoseismic database that will eventually contain all dated paleoearthquakes in California. The first-year effort focused on two objectives: 1) design of the database and input structure, and 2) initial population of the database with unpublished data from the southern San Jacinto fault. This database will serve the large community that is interested in long-term patterns of seismicity in California, and potentially as a test to computer simulations of long term seismicity. The data structure has been constructed in XML for flexibility and ready incorporation into a relational database. The text-based XML format has been used as a preliminary input structure also, and most southern San Jacinto paleoseismic sites have been entered. The structure includes site name and location, timing and uncertainty of past events (or cumulative displacement over multiple events), estimate of separation between events, with uncertainty, references or locations of primary data, trench logs, raw radiocarbon data and, if available, the OxCal models and associated PDFs of the paleo-event ages.
Intellectual Merit Computer simulations of long term earthquake production on California's network of faults produces "realistic" patterns of earthquakes, but are they real? This database will potentially be a test of computer simulations by providing a single source of paleoseismic data to compare with model predictions.
Broader Impacts Develops a community paleoseismic database that can be accessed by the community to test earthquake simulation models, which is an enhancement of SCEC infrastructure. A significant part of the data being compiled were collected by women as part of their thesis projects, and the presentation of their data will bring to light otherwise obscure information.
Exemplary Figure Figure 2. Mock-up of the web site that will host the paleoseismic data.