HR: 10:20h
AN: S22B-01 INVITED     [Abstracts]
TI: Building the Southern California Earthquake Center
AU: * Jordan, T H
EM: tjordan@usc.edu
AF: Southern California Earthquake Center, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0742 United States
AU: Henyey, T
EM: henyey@usc.edu
AF: Southern California Earthquake Center, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0742 United States
AU: McRaney, J K
EM: mcraney@usc.edu
AF: Southern California Earthquake Center, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0742 United States
AB: Kei Aki was the founding director of the Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC), a multi-institutional collaboration formed in 1991 as a Science and Technology Center (STC) under the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U. S. Geological Survey (USGS). Aki and his colleagues articulated a system-level vision for the Center: investigations by disciplinary working groups would be woven together into a "Master Model" for Southern California. In this presentation, we will outline how the Master-Model concept has evolved and how SCEC's structure has adapted to meet scientific challenges of system-level earthquake science. In its first decade, SCEC conducted two regional imaging experiments (LARSE I & II); published the "Phase-N" reports on (1) the Landers earthquake, (2) a new earthquake rupture forecast for Southern California, and (3) new models for seismic attenuation and site effects; it developed two prototype "Community Models" (the Crustal Motion Map and Community Velocity Model) and, perhaps most important, sustained a long-term, multi-institutional, interdisciplinary collaboration. The latter fostered pioneering numerical simulations of earthquake ruptures, fault interactions, and wave propagation. These accomplishments provided the impetus for a successful proposal in 2000 to reestablish SCEC as a "stand alone" center under NSF/USGS auspices. SCEC remains consistent with the founders' vision: it continues to advance seismic hazard analysis through a system-level synthesis that is based on community models and an ever expanding array of information technology. SCEC now represents a fully articulated "collaboratory" for earthquake science, and many of its features are extensible to other active-fault systems and other system-level collaborations. We will discuss the implications of the SCEC experience for EarthScope, the USGS's program in seismic hazard analysis, NSF's nascent Cyberinfrastructure Initiative, and other large collaboratory programs.
UR: http://www.scec.org/
DE: 7223 Seismic hazard assessment and prediction
DE: 7209 Earthquake dynamics and mechanics
DE: 7212 Earthquake ground motions and engineering
SC: Seismology [S]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting