Citation

Shaw BE, Milner KR, Field EH, Richards-Dinger K, Gilchrist JJ, Dieterich JH, Jordan TH. Sci. Adv. 2018; 4(8): eaau0688.

Affiliation

Department of Earth Science, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, American Association for the Advancement of Science)

DOI

10.1126/sciadv.aau0688

PMID

30140746

PMCID

PMC6105231

Abstract

Seismic hazard models are important for society, feeding into building codes and hazard mitigation efforts. These models, however, rest on many uncertain assumptions and are difficult to test observationally because of the long recurrence times of large earthquakes. Physics-based earthquake simulators offer a potentially helpful tool, but they face a vast range of fundamental scientific uncertainties. We compare a physics-based earthquake simulator against the latest seismic hazard model for California. Using only uniform parameters in the simulator, we find strikingly good agreement of the long-term shaking hazard compared with the California model. This ability to replicate statistically based seismic hazard estimates by a physics-based model cross-validates standard methods and provides a new alternative approach needing fewer inputs and assumptions for estimating hazard.

Language: en