Overview of the SCEC/USGS Community Stress Drop Validation Study Using the 2019 Ridgecrest Earthquake Sequence

ABSTRACT We present initial findings from the ongoing Community Stress Drop Validation Study to compare spectral stress-drop estimates for earthquakes in the 2019 Ridgecrest, California, sequence. This study uses a unified dataset to independently estimate earthquake source parameters through various methods. Stress drop, which denotes the change in average shear stress along a fault during earthquake rupture, is a critical parameter in earthquake science, impacting ground motion, rupture simulation, and source physics. Spectral stress drop is commonly derived by fitting the amplitude-spectrum shape, but estimates can vary substantially across studies for individual earthquakes. Sponsored jointly by the U.S. Geological Survey and the Statewide (previously, Southern) California Earthquake Center our community study aims to elucidate sources of variability and uncertainty in earthquake spectral stress-drop estimates through quantitative comparison of submitted results from independent analyses. The dataset includes nearly 13,000 earthquakes ranging from M 1 to 7 during a two-week period of the 2019 Ridgecrest sequence, recorded within a 1° radius. In this article, we report on 56 unique submissions received from 20 different groups, detailing spectral corner frequencies (or source durations), moment magnitudes, and estimated spectral stress drops. Methods employed encompass spectral ratio analysis, spectral decomposition and inversion, finite-fault modeling, ground-motion-based approaches, and combined methods. Initial analysis reveals significant scatter across submitted spectral stress drops spanning over six orders of magnitude. However, we can identify between-method trends and offsets within the data to mitigate this variability. Averaging submissions for a prioritized subset of 56 events shows reduced variability of spectral stress drop, indicating overall consistency in recovered spectral stress-drop values.

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Journal
Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America
Published
2025-05-02
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1785/0120240158
Citations
16
Primary Topic
earthquake and tectonic studies
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
29.86
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article

Overview of the SCEC/USGS Community Stress Drop Validation Study Using the 2019 Ridgecrest Earthquake Sequence

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16 citations
Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America
earthquake and tectonic studies
29.86
article

Overview of the SCEC/USGS Community Stress Drop Validation Study Using the 2019 Ridgecrest Earthquake Sequence

C. J. Ruhl, Dino Bindi, Daniele Spallarossa, Emma Devin, Grace A. Parker, Oliver S. Boyd, Ralph J. Archuleta, W. R. Walter, Shanna Chu, Colin Pennington, Kevin Mayeda, R. M. Harrington, Adrien Oth, T. Taira, Gail M. Atkinson, William L. Ellsworth, Tom Eulenfeld, Hongfeng Yang, Giovanna Calderoni, Clara E. Yoon, Matteo Picozzi, Chen Ji, James S. Neely, Daniel Taylor Trugman, A. Baltay, Yihe Huang, Jorge Roman-Nieves, Qimin Wu, Kilian B. Kemna, Paola Morasca, Mariano Supino, Peter M. Shearer, Meichen Liu, Wenyuan Fan, Claudio Satriano, Gregory C. Beroza, Douglas S. Dreger, E. S. Cochran, Rachel E. Abercrombie, Xiaowei Chen, Jiewen Zhang, Ellen Yu, Ian Vandevert, Trey Knudson
article en
16 citations

Abstract

ABSTRACT We present initial findings from the ongoing Community Stress Drop Validation Study to compare spectral stress-drop estimates for earthquakes in the 2019 Ridgecrest, California, sequence. This study uses a unified dataset to independently estimate earthquake source parameters through various methods. Stress drop, which denotes the change in average shear stress along a fault during earthquake rupture, is a critical parameter in earthquake science, impacting ground motion, rupture simulation, and source physics. Spectral stress drop is commonly derived by fitting the amplitude-spectrum shape, but estimates can vary substantially across studies for individual earthquakes. Sponsored jointly by the U.S. Geological Survey and the Statewide (previously, Southern) California Earthquake Center our community study aims to elucidate sources of variability and uncertainty in earthquake spectral stress-drop estimates through quantitative comparison of submitted results from independent analyses. The dataset includes nearly 13,000 earthquakes ranging from M 1 to 7 during a two-week period of the 2019 Ridgecrest sequence, recorded within a 1° radius. In this article, we report on 56 unique submissions received from 20 different groups, detailing spectral corner frequencies (or source durations), moment magnitudes, and estimated spectral stress drops. Methods employed encompass spectral ratio analysis, spectral decomposition and inversion, finite-fault modeling, ground-motion-based approaches, and combined methods. Initial analysis reveals significant scatter across submitted spectral stress drops spanning over six orders of magnitude. However, we can identify between-method trends and offsets within the data to mitigate this variability. Averaging submissions for a prioritized subset of 56 events shows reduced variability of spectral stress drop, indicating overall consistency in recovered spectral stress-drop values.

Bulletin of the Seismological Society of AmericaVol. 115(3)
Boston University (US), California Institute of Technology (US), Western University (CA), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (US), United States Geological Survey (US), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR), Planetary Science Institute (US), University of Nevada, Reno (US), Institut de physique du globe de Paris (FR), Scripps Institution of Oceanography (US), University of California, Santa Barbara (US), Chinese University of Hong Kong (HK), Princeton University (US), Université Paris Cité (FR), University of Michigan (US), Patrick Air Force Base (US), Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (US), Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (IT), University of Massachusetts Boston (US), University of Chicago (US), Systems Analytics (United States) (US), European Center for Geodynamics and Seismology (LU), Verisk Analytics (United States) (US), International Consultants (Egypt) (EG), Lettis Consultants International (United States) (US), GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences (DE), National Institute of Oceanography and Applied Geophysics (IT), Rice University (US), Friedrich Schiller University Jena (DE), University of Genoa (IT), Ruhr University Bochum (DE), Texas A&M University (US), University of California, Berkeley (US), Stanford University (US)
Sustainable cities and communities
Openalex Percentile: Top 0%
earthquake and tectonic studies
29.86
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