Computational Earthquake Physics PART I: Introduction

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Large earthquakes are terrible natural disasters which usually cause massive casualties and huge property loss. In the beginning of the new century, large earthquakes violently struck the world, especially the Asia-Pacific region. Nearly 300,000 people were killed by the magnitude 9.0 Northern Sumatra earthquake and tsunami, and the magnitude 7.8 Pakistan earthquake of October 8th, 2005 resulted in 90,000 deaths. In the meantime, there has been great progress in computational earthquake physics. New understanding of earthquake processes, numerous ideas on earthquake dynamics and complexity, new numerical models and methods, higher performance super-computers, and new data and analysis methods are emerging. These include the LSM (Lattice Solid particle simulation Model) Australian Computational Earth Systems Simulator (ACcESS), Japan’s Earth Simulator, GeoFEM, GeoFEST, QuakeSim, SERVO grid, iSERVO, LURR (Load-Unload Response Ratio), PI (Pattern Informatics), Critical Sensitivity, earthquake Critical Point Hypothesis, the friction law and seismicity, tremor, the Virtual California model, interaction between faults and the conversation of earthquakes, ROC (Relative Operating Characteristic), MFEM (Multiscale Finite-Element Model), etc. Most of these are the outcome of ACES-related research and activities, and will be presented in this volume.