Driven nonlinear threshold systems are known to be some of the most important and interesting systems in nature. They include networks of earthquake faults, neural networks, superconductors and semiconductors, and the World Wide Web, as well as political, social, and ecological systems. All of these systems have self-organizing dynamics that are strongly correlated in space and time, and all typically display a multiplicity of spatial and temporal scales. They are usually characterized by observable phenomena that can be understood with modern methods of space-time pattern analysis, and by a highly nonlinear, complex underlying dynamics whose evolution in space in time is extremely difficult to observe, understand, or predict.

Our group focuses on developing the theoretical and computational methods needed to understand these classes of driven, non-equilibrium threshold systems. We are particularly interested in developing the computational tools necessary to simulate these high-dimensional complex systems within the context of modern, web-based, high performance computing methods using Beowulf clusters and other types of parallel, SMP machines. We view the development of the emergent, Semantic Grid as a particulary promising technology, and we are pursuing the development of emergent computational paradigms. Computational simulations thus represent a major tool and a major focus of our research. Much of our work is concerned with a particularly important threshold system in nature, earthquake fault systems.

Here we focus on a systems approach to the development of simulations of earthquake fault systems, with a view towards developing the software and theoretical infrastructure needed to understand and predict these potentially catastrophic events. Emergent computing for such systems arising from the Semantic Grid will incorporate certain key capabilities to produce the desired effect of digital brilliance. These capabilities will be capable of coupling code execution with code performance, will be capable of supporting and fusing multiple observational sources and will be capable of reconciling simultaneously computations at multiple scales.

John Rundle

Faculty

• John Rundle
• Interdisciplinary Professor of Physics, Civil & Environmental Engineering and Geology
• Director, Center for Computational Science and Engineering
• Don Turcotte
• University of California, Davis

Research Staff

• Robert Scherbakov (CSE)
• Gleb Morein (CSE)

Students

• James Holliday, UC Davis
• Paul Rundle, REU, Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA
• Jordan Van Aalsburg, UC Davis

Group Members at Other Institutions:

• Andrea Donnellan, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA
• Geoffrey Fox, Professor of Computer Science, Indiana University
• Louise Kellogg, Professor of Geology, UC Davis
• Bill Klein, Professor of Physics, Boston University
• Kristy Tiampo, University of Western Ontario, Canada
• Jose Fernandez Torres, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain

Foreign Collaborators (ACES / iSERVO Collaboration)

• Peter Mora, QUAKES, University of Queensland, Australia
• Mitsuhiro Matsu'ura, University of Tokyo
• Xiang-chu Yin, Center for Analysis and Prediction, CSB China

• Status of the real-time forecast experiment (original version) as of May 22, 2006 (pdf) (powerpoint)
  
• Earthquake (InSAR) movie
  

General Earthquake Models (GEM)

APEC Cooperation for Earthquake Simulations (ACES)

Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC)

US DOE's Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative (ASCI)

NSF's Information Technology Research Program (ITR)

The Rundle Group has an old homepage available for viewing.