Annual Meeting - SCEC.org

SCEC Advisory Council | Report
internships, that there is “life outside academia.” The SCEC Distinguished Speakers Program is
warmly welcomed by the Advisory Council, which has recommended the initiation of such an
outreach effort for several years.
The Advisory Council plans a full evaluation of the ELCA office and its programs in the coming
year. That evaluation will be conducted in cooperation with Sue Perry and other SCEC leaders.
Feedback on CSEP
The Collaboratory for the Study of Earthquake Predictability (CSEP), as a SCEC special project in
its second year of support from the Keck Foundation, is in a stage of rapid development. SCEC
released the first version of CSEP Testing Center software at the Annual Meeting. In his 7
September letter to the Advisory Council, the SCEC Director asked:
• How much effort should SCEC expend on the international aspects of CSEP?
• What should be SCEC’s funding strategy after the Keck Foundation grant expires in 2009?
• Is the connection of CSEP to the SEC base program through the Earthquake Forecasting &
Predictability (EFP) focus group appropriately configured?
• Should SCEC incorporate younger leadership in the EFP focus area?
It is the Advisory Council view that the approach SCEC is taking to earthquake predictability is
appropriately rigorous, a direction likely to engender broad community support. Moreover, SCEC
is doing a good job at promoting the capabilities of the collaboratory. The expansion of the
program’s perspective to geographic settings other than southern California is sensible as means to
expand the likelihood of capturing events. The connection to SCEC’s base program, although not
perceived by all as strong, is appropriately overseen by the EFP focus group.
The future of CSEP will depend, in part, on whether there are interesting outcomes to the
collaboratory’s activities. Whether all prediction methodologies fail rigorous tests or at least one
algorithm shows promise will make a substantial difference in the imperative for long-term
support of this endeavor. Another year or two of operation, however, may not be sufficient to
decide this question, so it is recommended that SCEC seek support for the continuation of this
collaboratory, or the initiation of a successor program, from the U.S. Geological Survey or another
appropriate organization. The thoughtful development of evaluation metrics for the program’s
continuation should be an integral component of seeking such extended support.
Advice on Initiatives in Large-scale Earthquake Simulation
Another special project area within SCEC that is now undergoing rapid growth is large-scale
earthquake simulation. At the Annual Meeting SCEC leadership reported that the center had just
received notice that a proposal to NSF to support the continued development of such simulations
(PetaShake) would be funded at a level of $1.8M for 2 years and that another proposal to NSF at a
comparable level, coordinated with the first, was under review. The Director asked the Advisory
Council the following questions:
• Is continuing this direction appropriate to SCEC’s development of earthquake system
science?
• How should these special projects be connected to the SCEC base effort?
• How should SCEC coordinate their development of simulation-based seismic hazard
analysis with the engineering community?
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