Digital Library

This TG is led by Prof. Vilotte (IPG) and Prof. Igel (LMU). SPICE is a network focusing on the development and application of large-scale supercomputing tasks that generate – in addition to the already gigantic amount of daily observational data in seismology – huge synthetic data sets. SPICE argues that at least some of these synthetic data are as valuable as observations and should be stored and archived like observations. This point was well taken by the international seismological community when presented during the IRIS (Incorporated research institutions in seismology) Meeting in Arizona, May, 2004, (invited lecture given by Prof. Igel) and led – in a follow-up during the Meeting of the European Seismological Commission in September 2004 – to the installation of an international working group under the umbrella of FDSN (www.fdsn.org), the organization in charge of the world-wide seismic network. This work group on synthetic data formats is now developing an international standard for the storage and distribution of synthetic seismograms. Several SPICE scientists are involved in or associated with this workgroup (Prof. Igel, Prof. Vilotte, Dr. Stupazzini, Prof. Giardini). Once this format is agreed upon, archiving can be initiated with options to link observations with simulation data as well as visualization of various different aspects of simulations (e.g. earthquake scenarios).

A further important aspect of the SPICE archive will be the provision of computational algorithms for the geo-scientific community. This requires, that certain standards for the computer programs are adopted and also that there is continuous quality control and quality improvement after the codes have been made available on the internet. This library will be initiated in 2005.

A joint workshop with the TG numerical methods took place  July 18-20, 2005 in Munich. The program , presentations and conclusions can be found under here here.