Enhanced Computational Tool for Seismic Fault Sensitivity Screening

Abstract

Earthquakes occur when stress exceeds the strength of pre-existing faults, potentially causing severe damage to the built environment. It is critical to identify the faults that are most likely to rupture, given our knowledge of various subsurface properties. Existing fault screening tools are closed-source or have limitations that affect their usefulness in research and engineering applications. Our team is developing a more efficient, open-source seismic fault sensitivity screening software program designed to support probabilistic seismic hazard analysis and geophysical research. Our research aims to improve upon existing tools by leveraging vectorization to increase calculation speeds and offering choice among multiple probabilistic distributions to capture uncertainty in input parameters. Moreover, the open-source nature of this tool enables researchers to adapt the program for their own purposes to support seismic hazard assessment.