SCEC Award Number 19109 View PDF
Proposal Category Collaborative Proposal (Integration and Theory)
Proposal Title Advancing Simulations of Sequences of Earthquakes and Aseismic Slip (SEAS)
Investigator(s)
Name Organization
Brittany Erickson University of Oregon Junle Jiang Cornell University Michael Barall Invisible Software, Inc. Rowena Lohman Cornell University
Other Participants Ruth Harris, Eric Dunham, Nadia Lapusta, Jean-Paul Ampuero, Ahmed Elbanna, Yoshi Kaneko, Jeremy Kozdon, Yajing Liu, Paul Segall, Meng Wei, Kali Allison, Lauren Abrahams, Yingdi Luo, Benjamin Idini, Camilla Cattania, Valere Lambert, Sylvain Barbot, Maricela Best Mckay
SCEC Priorities 1d, 1e, 3f SCEC Groups SDOT, FARM, CS
Report Due Date 04/30/2020 Date Report Submitted 04/27/2020
Project Abstract
 With SCEC support this past year, we have continued our efforts to lead the community code verification exercises for SEAS models. Our main progress and achievements in 2019 have been the following. We engaged a growing number of researchers who are committed to recent benchmark exercises, or are interested in our current activity and potential future participation (~31 PIs, ~27 students/postdocs). We published a peer-reviewed paper about SEAS BP1/BP2 results [Erickson, Jiang et al., 2020]. We designed two new benchmarks, BP3 (fully dynamic 2D case) and BP4 (quasi-dynamic 3D case). We expanded the functionality of our online platform for comparisons of 3D benchmark problems. We organized our third SEAS-themed workshop in Jan. 2020 for sharing advancements in the field and discussing results of benchmarks BP3 and BP4.
Intellectual Merit Developing robust predictive models of earthquake source processes is one of the main SCEC goals. Research groups within the earthquake science community are contributing to this goal through the development of computational methods for simulating Sequences of Earthquakes and Aseismic Slip (SEAS). With SCEC support this past year, we have continued our efforts to lead the community code verification exercises for SEAS models. Our main progress and achievements in 2019 have been the following. We engaged a growing number of researchers who are committed to recent benchmark exercises, or are interested in our current activity and potential future participation (~31 PIs, ~27 students/postdocs). We published a peer-reviewed paper about SEAS BP1/BP2 results [Erickson, Jiang et al., 2020]. We designed two new benchmarks, BP3 (fully dynamic 2D case) and BP4 (quasi-dynamic 3D case). We expanded the functionality of our online platform for comparisons of 3D benchmark problems. We organized our third SEAS-themed workshop in Jan. 2020 for sharing advancements in the field and discussing results of benchmarks BP3 and BP4. In the BP3 exercises, we found excellent agreements between 4 modeling groups, when similar domain sizes and boundary conditions are adopted, and qualitative differences between quasi-dynamic and fully dynamic results. In the BP4 exercises, we found qualitative agreements between 4 modeling groups and discrepancies attributable to domain sizes and/or time-stepping methods, and learned lessons about how to better address the numerical challenges in 3D benchmarks. We presented our results at the SCEC Earthquake Simulators Workshop, the SCEC Annual Meeting, and the AGU Annual Meeting.
Broader Impacts The SEAS initiative has grown in its second year at SCEC, with strides in community building, development of new code verification benchmarks, organizing workshops, and promoting visibility of SEAS modeling in the SCEC community and beyond. The overall strategy of our benchmark exercises is to produce robust results and maximize participation.
Exemplary Figure Figure 6. Coseismic rupture front contours of the first event in the sequence from three simulations with comparable model sizes. Figure created by Junle Jiang.