Recent Improvements to the SCEC Unified Community Velocity Model (UCVM) Software Framework

Date: 4/25/2019

Time: 06:00 PM

Room: Grand Ballroom

The Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC) has developed the open-source Unified Community Velocity Model (UCVM) software framework to facilitate the registration and distribution of existing and future seismic velocity models to the SCEC community. The UCVM software framework is designed to provide a standard query interface to multiple, alternative velocity models, even if the underlying velocity models are defined in different formats or use different geographic projections. The UCVM framework provides a comprehensive set of software tools for querying seismic velocity model properties, combining regional 3D models and 1D background models, visualizing 3D models, and generating computational models in the form of regular grids or unstructured meshes that can be used as input for ground-motion simulations. The UCVM framework helps researchers compare seismic velocity models and build equivalent simulation meshes from alternative velocity models. These capabilities enable researchers to evaluate the impact of alternative velocity models in ground-motion simulations and seismic hazard analysis applications. Over the last year, we added several new capabilities into UCVM. Using the most recent version of UCVM, researchers can now add an optional Ely-Jordan geotechnical layer into several UCVM-supported velocity models that lack low Vs values in near-surface areas, making these models more useful in ground motion simulations. We updated UCVM to use the 2015 Wills Vs30 map, integrated the latest Proj.5 projection library into the software, and improved UCVM’s multi-models tiling mechanism. In addition, UCVM users can now query a central California velocity model that includes an updated San Joaquin Basin model and a Santa Maria Basin model developed by the Harvard Structural Geology and Earth Resources group. We also used UCVM to export several existing California seismic velocity models into netCDF format that can be visualized using IRIS EMC visualization tools.

Presenting Author: Philip J. Maechling

Authors