Living on an Active Earth Perspectives on Earthquake Science (2003) / Chapter Skim
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7. Summary
7. Summary
Pages 384-394
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From page 384... ...
However, there has been considerable controversy about how government and the private sector can best implement loss reduction measures through regulatory policies, economic incentives, long-term investments, and public education. Part of this debate concerns the role of scientific research in earthquake mitigation.
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From page 385... ...
The historical separation between these two lines of inquiry has been narrowed by recent progress on dynamical models of earthquake occurrence and strong ground motion. This research has transformed the field from a haphazard collection of disciplinary activities into a more coordinated system-level science that seeks to describe seismic activity not just in terms of individual events, but as an evolutionary process involving dynamical interactions within networks of interconnected faults.
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From page 386... ...
Earthquake scientists have begun to understand how geological complexity controls the strong ground motion during large earthquakes and, working with engineers, how to predict the site-specific response of buildings, lifelines, and critical facilities to seismic excitation. The long-term expectations for potentially destructive shaking have been quantified in the form of seismic hazard maps, which display estimates of the maximum shaking intensities expected at each locality in the United States.
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From page 387... ...
Accurate prediction of strong ground motions requires detailed information about the heterogeneities in material properties and the stress field that govern high-frequency wave propagation. The committee identified specific long-term goals in nine areas of Interdisciplinary research that offer exceptional opportunities to further the national effort in earthquake science: 1.
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From page 388... ...
6. Ground-Motion Prediction: Predict the strong ground motions caused by earthquakes and the nonlinear responses of surface layers to these motions including fault rupture, landsliding, and liquefaction with enough spatial and temporal detail to assess seismic risk accurately.
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From page 389... ...
Laser and radar altimetry are needed to produce the precise digital elevation models for investigating surface faulting and the deformations caused by buried faults. The determination of fault slip rates and rupture histories over many earthquake cycles will require the combination of geologic field study and high-precision age dating.
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From page 390... ...
Pioneering international efforts such as the Global Seismic Hazard Assessment Program, the Global Strain Rate Map Project, the Global Fault Mapping Project, and the Working Group on Earthquake Recurrence Through Time are providing uniform standards and data access for seismic hazard analysis on a global scale, and they should be expanded with aggressive data-gathering efforts that exploit the new technologies described in this report. A major objective of earthquake science should be to extend observational systems and data bases into the oceans to understand the distribution of offshore faulting and its seismogenic and tsunamigenic potential.
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From page 391... ...
The transition of earthquake science to a systems-oriented, physicsbased approach has important ramifications for the types of cooperative research activities and organizational structures that will be most effective in addressing the basic and applied problems of earthquake research. In particular, additional support is needed for scientific centers and distributed collaboratories with advanced information technology infrastructures, where the disciplinary activities of many research groups can be coordinated, evaluated, and synthesized into system-level models of earthquake behavior.
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From page 392... ...
, which would expand existing geodetic networks with additional permanent GPS stations and campaignstyle observations and fill major gaps in measurements of plate boundary deformation in the western United States. The second geodetic component a satellite-based InSAR imaging system would map decimeterlevel deformations of fault ruptures continuously over areas tens to hundreds of kilometers wide, as well as a range of nonseismic phenomena such as volcano inflation, glacial flow, and ground subsidence.
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From page 393... ...
Investments made now will eventually pay off in terms of saved lives and reduced damage. These returns can be realized sooner by encouraging unconventional lines of research; coordinating scientific activities across disciplines and organizations, especially between scientists and engineers; and supporting international programs to investigate the global diversity of earthquake behavior.
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