Southern California Earthquake Center

Southern California Earthquake Center
Name	Southern California Earthquake Center
Abbreviation	SCEC
Formation	1991
Type	Research consortium
Headquarters	Los Angeles, California
Region served	Southern California
Leader title	Director
Affiliations	University of Southern California, California Institute of Technology

Southern California Earthquake Center is a research consortium that coordinates earthquake science, hazard assessment, and preparedness across academic, government, and industry institutions in Los Angeles, San Diego, San Bernardino County, and Riverside County. It fosters observational seismology, geodesy, geophysics, and earthquake engineering through multi-institutional projects involving universities such as University of Southern California, California Institute of Technology, UC Berkeley, and UCLA. The center supports collaborations with federal agencies including the United States Geological Survey and National Science Foundation, and engages with local governments such as the City of Los Angeles and County of Los Angeles for hazard mitigation.

Overview

SCEC functions as a hub linking field networks like the Southern California Seismic Network and California Integrated Seismic Network with academic groups at Caltech, USC, UCLA, UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara, and University of Nevada, Reno. Its work integrates data sources such as Global Positioning System, InSAR, seismic reflection surveys, and paleoseismology trench records from the San Andreas Fault and Garlock Fault to produce community models like the Community Velocity Model and physics-based rupture simulations exemplified by the CyberShake project. Through large collaborative efforts, SCEC contributes to hazard products used by stakeholders including the California Office of Emergency Services, Los Angeles Unified School District, Metrolink (California), and Southern California Edison.

History and Development

SCEC emerged from meetings among researchers at Caltech and USC in the late 1980s, formalized with funding from the National Science Foundation and the United States Geological Survey in 1991. Early milestones included development of the first regional seismic hazard models in coordination with the California Geological Survey and incorporation of paleoseismic results from sites like Pallett Creek and Bidart Fan. The center expanded through partnerships with institutions such as Stanford University, University of California, Santa Cruz, University of California, Davis, and University of Southern California Viterbi School of Engineering, adopting community modeling practices influenced by projects at IRIS (Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology) and data standards used by the International Seismological Centre. Over decades SCEC evolved to host community-driven efforts including shared software repositories, annual meetings with keynote speakers from W. H. K. Lee, Lucy Jones, and other notable seismologists, and major initiatives aligned with federal priorities like the ShakeOut scenario and emergency planning exercises conducted with FEMA.

Research Programs and Initiatives

SCEC organizes focused research programs on earthquake rupture dynamics, site effects, landslide and liquefaction susceptibility, and long-term fault behavior. Programs such as the Community Modeling Environment, CyberShake, and the SCEC Earthquake Simulations facilitate physics-based hazard assessment used alongside probabilistic seismic hazard analysis by groups like the Pacific Engineering Research Center. SCEC supports field campaigns collaborating with USGS Earthquake Science Center, California Institute of Technology Seismological Laboratory, and international partners at University of Tokyo, ETH Zurich, and Imperial College London on paleoseismology, geodesy, and crustal deformation. Initiatives include rapid response efforts coordinated with the ShakeAlert earthquake early warning system and scenario development such as the Great ShakeOut earthquake drill.

Data and Computational Resources

SCEC maintains and curates large datasets and community models accessible to researchers at institutions including Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories. Computational resources include high-performance computing allocations on systems like the XSEDE network and collaborations with cloud providers used to run large-scale waveform simulations and inversion codes developed at Caltech and USC Information Sciences Institute. Datasets integrated by SCEC encompass seismic catalogs from the ANSS Comprehensive Catalog, geodetic time series from UNAVCO, and geological maps produced by the USGS and California Geological Survey. Community tools and software repositories are maintained with partners such as GitHub, enabling reproducible workflows used in earthquake forecasting research by groups at University of Washington and University of Colorado Boulder.

Education, Outreach, and Public Policy

SCEC conducts outreach and education programs in collaboration with the Los Angeles Unified School District, California Community Colleges, and museums such as the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and California Science Center. Training initiatives include workshops for engineers from firms like AECOM and Jacobs Engineering Group, K–12 curricula developed with California Department of Education frameworks, and professional development for emergency managers in counties including Orange County and Ventura County. Policy engagement includes providing scientific input to the California Earthquake Authority, municipal planners in San Diego County and Santa Barbara County, and testimony before legislative bodies in Sacramento on seismic risk reduction measures.

Collaborations and Partnerships

SCEC partnerships span universities (e.g., Stanford University, Princeton University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology), federal labs (e.g., USGS, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), state agencies (e.g., California Geological Survey), and international research centers (e.g., Geological Survey of Japan). Collaborative projects link with professional societies such as the Seismological Society of America, American Geophysical Union, and Earthquake Engineering Research Institute to disseminate research findings. Industry partnerships with utilities like Pacific Gas and Electric Company and transit agencies such as the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority support resilience-focused research and implementation of mitigation strategies.

Category:Earth science organizations in the United States Category:Research institutes in California Category:Seismology