David McCallen, Senior Scientist and Critical Infrastructure Program Leader at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), will give a presentation entitled “Transformational Advanced Computer Simulations for Enhanced Understanding of Earthquake Risk in the San Francisco Bay Area” on Sunday, Jan. 12, 2025, at 2 p.m. in the Civic Center Library Storytime Room, 1188 S. Livermore Ave. Registration is not necessary to attend this free program for adults.

With the major advancements in high-performance computing, a new and transformational approach to earthquake risk assessments is emerging. Over the past six years, engineers, scientists, and computer scientists from LBNL and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) have developed "EQSIM,” a new fault-to-structure earthquake simulation framework with a model that encompasses the entire San Francisco Bay Area. David McCallen will provide an overview of the application of this new simulation capability utilizing the world's fastest supercomputers at the Department of Energy’s (DOE) national laboratories. He will discuss new insights into regional earthquake risk and describe the implications for earthquake resilience.

Traditional earthquake risk assessments have relied on historical earthquake ground motion measurements from many different locations to help predict future earthquake motions at a site of interest. While this approach has been important to framing a statistical basis for predicting future earthquake ground motions, it is limited in its ability to capture the complex site-to-site variability of earthquake shaking which is of primary interest for assessing earthquake risk to infrastructure. EQSIM utilizes detailed, massive regional-scale computer models to simulate the complex earthquake processes starting from the initiation of fault rupture through seismic wave propagation through the earth to the final interaction of seismic waves with critical infrastructure. This new approach offers the potential for advancing new understanding of the regional variability of earthquake motions and the site-specific amplitude of earthquake shaking.

David McCallen is currently a Senior Scientist in the Energy Geosciences Division at LBNL. He has worked in several positions related to the DOE National Laboratories at both LLNL and LBNL. His career started in the Structural and Applied Mechanics Group at Livermore and responsibilities eventually extended to major programs including Engineering Division Leader for the National Ignition Facility, and Deputy Principal Associate Director for Global Security. Dr. McCallen has also had a major academic element to his work as Professor and Director of the Center for Earthquake Engineering Research at the University of Nevada.