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Pathway 3 (shown
below in yellow), when linked into Pathway 2, is the "full
physics" calculation, in which the tectonic stresses in a fault
system model (FSM) evolving over long time scales (years to centuries)
cause spontaneous failures on fault segments. The details of these
ruptures, which develop on very short time scales (seconds), are
simulated by a rupture dynamics model (RDM), and the resulting fault
displacements are used as input to Pathway 2. Fault system models
capable of producing synthetic catalogs of earthquakes have been
developed under various restrictive assumptions, but their ability
to reliably predict seismicity sequences over extended intervals
has not been fully evaluated. (Given the crudeness of the models,
their accuracy is likely to be low.) Fully dynamical, 3D numerical
simulations of spontaneous fault rupture are now feasible, and,
properly tuned, these simulations have been shown to reproduce observed
ground motions for large earthquakes, such as the 1992 Landers earthquake
in Southern California.
SCEC/CME Computational
Pathway Diagram:
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