Annual Meeting - SCEC.org

Group 1 – CSEP | Poster Abstracts
Collaboratory for the Study of Earthquake Predictability
(CSEP)
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THE COLLABORATORY FOR THE STUDY OF EARTHQUAKE PREDICTABILITY
(CSEP) TESTING CENTER ROADMAP Liukis M, Schorlemmer D, Yu J, Maechling PJ,
Zechar JD, Jordan TH, Euchner F, and the CSEP Working Group
SCEC began development of the Collaboratory for the Study of Earthquake Predictability (CSEP) in
January of 2006 with funding provided by the W. M. Keck Foundation. Since that time, a large
group of scientists and software engineers have translated the concepts of CSEP into an operational
testing center. The initial implementation of the W. M. Keck Foundation Testing Center at SCEC for
the California natural laboratory became operational on September 1, 2007 and was further
improved, optimized, and extended over the past year. The design and implementation of the
SCEC Testing Center have been guided by four design goals that were originally identified as
objectives for the RELM testing center which are: (1) Controlled Environment, (2) Transparency, (3)
Comparability, and (4) Reproducibility. By meeting these goals, the CSEP Testing Center can
provide clear descriptions of how all registered earthquake forecasts are produced and how each of
the forecasts are evaluated. As of September 2008, there are four testing centers established around
the globe. SCEC Testing Center hosts forecasts models for California and Western Pacific testing
regions. There are nineteen 5-year forecast models, two 1-year models, seven 3-month forecast
models, and three daily forecasts under evaluation, all of which are seismicity-based forecast
models. We describe how the currently operational CSEP Testing Center at SCEC has been
constructed to meet the design goals, the status of the Testing Center and our experiences
operating the center since its inception.
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EXPANDING AND STARTING CSEP TESTING REGIONS Schorlemmer D, Zechar JD,
and Jordan TH
For the purposes of the Collaboratory for the Study of Earthquake Predictability (CSEP), a testing
region consists of two elements: a precisely defined geographic region in which earthquake models
are tested and the test specifications. Delineating a natural laboratory requires precise
characterization of available data, particularly regional earthquake catalogs. This includes
information about data generation processes, measurement uncertainties, and derived properties
such as catalog completeness. CSEP employs working groups for data, test, and model standards to
develop guidelines for testing region developments. We present the details of the California testing
region and describe the ongoing efforts to establish comparable testing regions in New Zealand,
Italy, the Western Pacific region, and Japan. The unique challenges of global testing are also
addressed.
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PROSPECTIVE TESTING OF EARTHQUAKE FORECAST MODELS IN EUROPE
Woessner J, Wiemer S, Schorlemmer D, Euchner F, and Marzocchi W
Earthquake forecasting and prediction related research has been plagued by controversy in the last
few decades. As a consequence, the focus has changed to more formal assessment of earthquake
predictability using well-defined quantitative hypothesis-testing algorithms in the framework of
the international Collaboratory for the Study of Earthquake Predictability (CSEP,
http://www.cseptesting.org). Funded by national agencies and ongoing European Union (EU)
projects, seismologists are currently building a European node of this global infrastructure
2008 SCEC Annual Meeting | 109