TRULY EXTENDED EARTHQUAKE RUPTURE

Project Information

TEAR

Grant agreement ID: 852992

DOI

10.3030/852992

Project closed

EC signature date 30 September 2019

Start date 1 October 2019

End date 30 September 2024

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 1 499 750,00

EU contribution

€ 1 499 750,00

Coordinated by

LUDWIG-MAXIMILIANS-UNIVERSITAET MUENCHEN
Germany

Periodic Reporting for period 4 - TEAR (TRULY EXTENDED EARTHQUAKE RUPTURE)

Reporting period: 2024-04-01 to 2024-09-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Earthquakes are a multi-scale and multi-physics hazard. Currently, there is no realistic hope to predict earthquakes reliably and the mechanics and feedback of earthquake fault networks throughout the seismic cycle are poorly understood.
The ERC Starting Grant project “TEAR - Truly Extended Earthquake Rupture” bridges this gap by harnessing the world’s largest supercomputers to enable, for example, physics-based forecasting of ground shaking. TEAR proposes a paradigm shift in modeling earthquake dynamics and understanding fault slip - a grand challenge in computational seismology and geophysics. By combining novel mathematical frameworks, field observations, laboratory data, and cutting-edge numerical techniques, TEAR advanced the frontiers of earthquake science.
TEAR’s objective was to integrate physics-based computer simulations with data-driven techniques and theoretical analysis to uncover the mechanisms underlying earthquake processes. TEAR harnessed the full breadth of increasingly data-rich earthquake- and long-term observations across space-time scales and incorporated relevant physical processes into novel modeling approaches. The project achieved breakthroughs in modeling a range of multi-physics problems, including earthquake-tsunami interaction and induced earthquakes in geo-reservoirs using new computational frameworks. The project's success was rooted in interdisciplinary collaborations within Geophysics and beyond, including Computer Science and Applied Mathematics.
Over the course of the project, TEAR developed state-of-the-art open-source software tools and datasets, ensuring adherence to FAIR data principles. These innovations were applied to real-world events, including simulations of major earthquakes such as the 2004 Sumatra, 2018 Palu, Sulawesi (Indonesia), 2019 Ridgecrest (California), and the 2023 Kahramanmaraş (Turkey) earthquake doublet. Key achievements have been published in 58 peer-reviewed articles.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The TEAR team successfully augmented earthquake modeling with observational data and methodological innovations, gained fundamental insight into earthquake physics, and strengthened physics-based modeling for earthquake response and rapid scientific analysis.
Major achievements included the development and advancement of novel open-source earthquake simulation research software (https://www.tear-erc.eu/software-and-data/) enabling the modeling of co-seismic, aseismic, and seismic cycling on naturally complex faults validated by observations. The team formulated novel mathematical and computational frameworks for deforming visco-elasto-plastic materials and explored the impact of geometric and structural fault zone complexity on how faults slip.
Applications include unprecedented physics-based and data-constrained models of real events including the 2004 Sumatra megathrust earthquake and tsunami; 2004 Parkfield, CA, earthquake, 2011 Tohoku-Oki, Japan, earthquake; 2014 Mw 7.3 Guerrero, Mexico earthquake; 2016, Norcia and Amatrice, Italy, earthquakes; 2017 Pohang, South Korea, induced earthquake; 2018 Palu, Sulawesi Earthquake and Tsunami; 2018 induced earthquakes in Helsinki, Finland; 2019 Ridgecrest, CA, rupture sequence; 2021 Maduo, Tibet, earthquake; 2023 Kahramanmaraş, Turkey, earthquake doublet; and the 2024 Noto Peninsula, Japan, earthquake and tsunami, as well as slow slip events in the Guerrero Gap, Mexico and in the Hikurangi, New Zealand subduction zone. We also developed dynamic rupture scenarios of paleo- and future earthquakes for complex and hazardous fault systems in diverse tectonic settings, including the Mau’ii detachment fault in Papua New Guinea, Húsavík-Flatey strike-slip Fault Zone in North Iceland, the Hellenic Arc subduction zone in the Mediterranean and the Cascadia megathrust in the US. TEAR also advanced the fundamental understanding of the earthquake energy budget, cascading multi-fault ruptures, and seismic-tsunami hazards.
TEAR’s commitment to open science is reflected in its 58 open datasets adhering to FAIR principles, ensuring reusability and accessibility for the broader scientific community. These resources were accompanied by hands-on training workshops, tutorials, and benchmark exercises.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Throughout the project, TEAR team members received numerous prestigious accolades recognizing their contributions to earthquake science and computational seismology. In 2020, PI Gabriel was honored with the Charles F. Richter Early Career Award from the Seismological Society of America and the PRACE Ada Lovelace Award for HPC. In 2022, she was named C.F. Gauss Lecturer by the German Geophysical Society. In 2023, she received the James B. Macelwane Medal from the American Geophysical Union, which also conferred the status of AGU Fellow. TEAR student Nico Schliwa earned the 2021 SSA Student Presentation Award and the 2022 Munich GeoCenter Best MSc Thesis Award. Editor’s choice selections and press releases also highlighted TEAR publications and software developments.

In addition to 58 published peer-reviewed scientific research articles, many appearing in prestigious journals like Science, Nature, Nature Geoscience, Nature Communications, AGU Advances, and Geophysical Research Letters, 11 articles are currently submitted and were published as preprints. These publications document significant advancements in understanding earthquake rupture dynamics, physics-based ground motion modelling, and the multi-physics of earthquakes and seismic waves. The project also included developing new community benchmarks, ensuring FAIR data accessibility, and promoting collaboration and knowledge sharing within the scientific community.

High-performance computing resources for TEAR were secured in a successful proposal to the Gauss Supercomputing Centre project “3-D seismic wave propagation and earthquake rupture: New roads for the forward and inverse problem” on SuperMUC-NG (total of ~30 Mio CPUh). TEAR was continuously engaged in dissemination and training efforts. As an example, The TEAR team co-led the 10/2020 and 10/2021 1st and 2nd PRACE Advanced Training on HPC for Computational Seismology at the High-Performance-Computing Centre Stuttgart (organized by the ChEESE EU Center of Excellence), which was virtual and free of charge for about 60 participants with preferred access for underrepresented European E13 country participants. All attendees gained access to the HLRS, Stuttgart, and supercomputer and learned about advances and challenges in numerical wave simulations, which were combined with hands-on training. The participants' evaluation was positive (more than 95% of attendees would recommend the course), certainly rendering this style of hands-on online teaching as an interesting pathway to “lower the barrier to HPC” in the future.

Selected TEAR project results