Annual Meeting - SCEC.org

Report | SCEC Director
These problems are interrelated and require an interdisciplinary, multi-institutional approach. Each was described in the
proposal by a short problem statement, a set of SCEC4 objectives, and a listing of priorities and requirements (a copy of the
complete SCEC4 proposal can be downloaded from http://www.scec.org/aboutscec/documents/index.html).
16 | Southern California Earthquake Center
Table 1. Fundamental Problems of Earthquake Science for SCEC4
1. Stress transfer from plate motion to crustal faults: long-term fault slip rates
2. Stress-mediated fault interactions and earthquake clustering: evaluation of mechanisms
3. Evolution of fault resistance during seismic slip: scale-appropriate laws for rupture modeling
4. Structure and evolution of fault zones and systems: relation to earthquake physics
5. Causes and effects of transient deformations: slow slip events and tectonic tremor
6. Seismic wave generation and scattering: prediction of strong ground motions
We developed a coherent set of interdisciplinary research initiatives that will focus on special fault study areas, the
development of a Community Geodetic Model for Southern California (which will combine GPS and InSAR data), and a
Community Stress Model. The latter will provide a new platform for the integration of various constraints on earthquakeproducing
stresses. Improvements will be made to SCEC’s unified structural representation and its statewide extensions.
Our organizational structure, reformulated in accordance with the overall SCEC4 research plan, comprises disciplinary
working groups, interdisciplinary
focus groups, special projects, and
technical activity groups (Figure 3).
A set of special projects funded
separately by the NSF, USGS, and
other agencies (the pink boxes in
Figure 3) will continue to leverage
core research support.
The Planning Committee has
organized a series of talks coupled
with group discussions that
emphasize new elements in the
SCEC research program and are
designed to encourage SCEC4
planning. The SCEC4 objectives will
be incorporated into the 2012
Science Plan. A draft of this plan
prepared by Deputy Director Greg
Beroza and the Planning Committee
is included in the online meeting
volume. An objective of this
meeting is to get community input
into this plan, which will be
finalized by the beginning of
October.
Organization and Leadership
Figure 3. The SCEC3 organization chart, showing the disciplinary committees (green), focus
groups (yellow), special projects (pink), CEO activities (orange), management offices (blue), and
the external advisory council (white).
SCEC is an institution-based center, governed by a Board of Directors, who represent its members. The membership currently
stands at 17 core institutions and 58 participating institutions (Table 2). SCEC currently involves more than 800 scientists and
other experts in active SCEC projects. A key measure of the size of the SCEC community—registrants at our Annual
Meetings—is shown for the entire history of the Center in Figure 1. By this measure, participation in SCEC has grown by onethird
during the five years of SCEC3.