PROPOSAL INFORMATION SUMMARY
1.
2.
Regional Panel
Destinations:
Project Title:
3.
Principal Investigator(s):
4.
Authorized Institutional
Representative:
5.
Program Element
Designation
ELEMENT I: National and regional earthquake
hazards assessments.
ELEMENT IV. Earthquake safety policy.
6.
7.
8.
Amount Requested
Proposed start date
Proposed Duration
$9963
December 1, 2007
1 year
9.
New Proposal
Yes
10. Active Earthquakerelated Research:
Grants, and Level of
Support
11. Has this proposal been
submitted to any other
agency for funding?
NIW
Workshop on Nevada 3-D Seismic Community
Velocity Models
John N. Louie
Tel.: (775) 784-4219, Email: louie@seismo.unr.edu
University of Nevada, Reno, NV 89557
Fax: 775-784-1833
Cindy Kiel
Director, Office of Sponsored Project Admin.
University of Nevada, Reno, NV 89557
Tel.: (775)784-4040, Fax (775)784-6064
Email: ckiel@unr.edu
Dept. of Energy/Great Basin Center for Geothermal
Energy: Assembly of a crustal seismic velocity
database for the western Great Basin, $81,211,
7/1/2005–9/30/2007, Louie (1.5 summer
months total).
No
2
Workshop on Nevada 3-D Seismic Community Velocity Models
John Louie
Seismological Laboratory, University of Nevada, Reno
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Application for Federal Assistance, Standard Form (SF) 424 ...................................... 1
Proposal Information Summary ................................................................................... 2
Table of Contents........................................................................................................ 3
Abstract....................................................................................................................... 4
Budget Summary ........................................................................................................ 5
Detail Budget .............................................................................................................. 6
Project Description
Motivation ........................................................................................................ 7
Project Objectives ........................................................................................ 7
Project Plan ...................................................................................................... 8
Collaborating UNR Efforts ................................................................................ 9
Final Report and Dissemination of Results.................................................................. 9
Project Personnel........................................................................................................ 10
Institutional Qualifications ........................................................................................... 11
Project Management Plan ........................................................................................... 12
Current and Pending Support...................................................................................... 12
3
Workshop on Nevada 3-D Seismic Community Velocity Models
John Louie
Seismological Laboratory, University of Nevada, Reno
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this workshop is to gather U.S. geoscientists interested in constructing,
contributing toward, or using community 3-D seismic velocity models (CVMs) for Nevada. The
two-day community workshop will take place in January 2008 at the University of Nevada in
Reno. The models that the workshop will organize will have a wide variety of applications. The
applications range from improving earthquake locations, calculating 3-D finite-fault wavepropagation effects, modeling source mechanisms, and interpreting tectonic structures; to hazard
mapping, HAZUS input, ShakeMap verification, and 3-d modeling of ground shaking.
The workshop will be organized around a few central themes, among them: 1) forming a
general vision for how the Nevada CVM will be used; 2) debate about how the CVM will be
constructed, and who can contribute; 3) discussion of the current state of the art in CVM
representation, and how other CVM efforts (SCEC, USGS, Ca3D, USArray, Utah) organize their
work; and 4) discussion of specific items to contribute toward the FY09 NIW regional priorities
in the USGS-NEHRP-ERP request for proposals. The results of the discussion on the specific
RFP items, and any action items voted on, will be delivered immediately to the NIW regional
coordinator. The PI will assemble a white paper summarizing all the presentations and
discussions as a project final report. All results will be posted on the web.
About thirty participants are expected, with twenty-five or so not from Reno and having
their travel costs partly defrayed by the proposed project. Aside from inviting any geoscientist
with seismological interests in or results from the western Great Basin and Nevada, researchers
who have assembled community velocity models in other areas will be specifically invited. The
workshop should initiate multi-institutional collaborations resulting in a maintained, verifiable
Nevada Community Velocity Model being available by 2011.
4
BUDGET SUMMARY
Project Title:
Workshop on Nevada 3-D Seismic Community Velocity Models
Principal Investigator: John N. Louie
Proposed Start Date:
Dec. 1, 2007
COST CATEGORY
1. Salaries and Wages
Total Salaries and Wages
2. Fringe Benefits/Labor Overhead
3. Equipment
4. Supplies
5. Services or Consultants
6. Radiocarbon Dating Services
7. Travel
8. Publication Costs
9. Other Direct Costs- Participant Support, Hosting
10. Total Direct Costs (items 1-9)
11. Indirect cost / General and
Proposed Completion Date: Nov. 30, 2008
Federal
First Year
$ 1345
Federal
Second Year
$0
$ 1345
Total
Both Years
$ 1345
$ 1345
$ 39
$0
$ 39
$0
$0
$0
$ 200
$0
$ 200
$ 200
$0
$ 200
$0
$0
$0
$0
$0
$0
$ 100
$0
$ 100
$ 7325
$0
$ 7325
$ 9209
$0
$ 9209
$ 758
$0
$ 758
$ 9967
$0
$ 9967
$ 9967
$0
$ 9967
Administrative (G&A) cost
12. Amount Proposed (items 10 & 11)
13. Total Project Cost (total of Federal and nonFederal amounts)
5
Detail Budget
NEHRP-NIW
Workshop on Nevada 3-D Seismic Community Velocity Models
University of Nevada, Reno Budget, Louie
Proposed start date:
12/1/07
Budget Prepared: 5/8/07 J. Louie
UNR Year 1 Total:
SALARIES
Employee
John Louie
Student-Academic Yr
Student-Summer
Undergraduate labor
Subtotals
Total Salary and Fringe
9967
Units
Daily
Monthly
Monthly
hourly
Rate
Number
625
1600
3200
9
1
0
0
80
Subtotal
625
0
0
720
1345
Benefit Rate
0.04
0.15
0.15
0.02
1384
PARTICIPANT SUPPORT
Facility occupancy, per day
Host Expense: Lunches, per person per day
Host Expense: Refreshments, per person per day
Partic. Supp: Honorarium /pers, partly covering travel and hotel
Participant Support & Host Total
Unit Cost
$500
$10
$10
$205
Quantity
2
60
60
25
Rate
Number
1000
600
600
5125
7325
Expendables
Office Supplies
Computer Services- web announc. & posts
Publication Costs- white paper
Travel
Dest
none by UNR personnel
Benefits
25
0
0
14
39
500
200
200
100
Subtotal
Total:
0
0
Additional Student Expenses
Tuition and Fees per year (18 credits)
Number
150
0
0
Total Direct Cost
9209
Indirect Cost Computation
Total Direct Cost
Subtract Tuition, Fees
Subtract Partic. Supp, Hosting
Adjusted Total
Fraction
Indirect Cost
9209
0
-7325
1884
942
0.4
FY08
Year One Total
942
0.405
FY09
758
9967
6
Workshop on Nevada 3-D Seismic Community Velocity Models
John Louie
Seismological Laboratory, University of Nevada, Reno
Project Description
Motivation
This two-day community workshop will take place in January 2008 at the University of
Nevada in Reno. The goal of the workshop is to gather U.S. geoscientists interested in
constructing, contributing toward, or using Community 3-D seismic Velocity Models (CVMs)
for Nevada. These models will have a wide variety of applications, from improving earthquake
locations, calculating 3-D finite-fault wave-propagation effects, modeling source mechanisms,
and interpreting tectonic structures; to hazard mapping, HAZUS input, ShakeMap verification,
and 3-d modeling of ground shaking.
This proposal directly addresses Element I of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Earthquake
Hazards Program (EHP) as “research that contributes to improvements in the national hazards
maps and to assessing earthquake hazards and reducing losses in urban areas;” and Element IV
by gathering together a community of scientists to define Nevada CVMs, an “active engagement
with our user community,” including those who use such models to predict ground shaking. The
project also works toward the goals stated in the “Intermountain West Priorities” section, to
“Convene multi-institutional workshops to organize sub-discipline working groups or to obtain
consensus information that validates or reevaluates … ground motion characterization for
different regions of the Intermountain West region for use in future updates of the U.S. National
Seismic Hazard Maps (NHSM).” As well the Nevada state priorities document at
http://www.nbmg.unr.edu/eq/priorities.pdf asks for “… a Nevada Seismic Hazard Workshop to
develop a preliminary Nevada Community Fault Model (CFM) and Community Velocity Model
(CVM), and to prioritize future efforts.” This proposal addresses the call for a CVM workshop.
By gathering regional and national experts, the community-based velocity-modeling
effort this workshop will initiate will improve our understanding of expected ground motions.
Thus, the expected results of the proposed research will directly apply to reducing losses
from earthquakes throughout Nevada. Nevada is particularly important as it contains the
nation’s most rapidly growing urban areas, in a State where the seismic hazard is second only to
California’s among the 48 conterminous States.
Project Objectives– The workshop will be organized around a few central themes,
including:
1) forming a general vision for how the Nevada CVM will be used;
2) debate about how the CVM will be constructed, and who can contribute;
3) discussion of the current state of the art in CVM representation, and how other CVM efforts
(SCEC, USGS, Ca3D, USArray, Utah) organize their work; and
4) discussion of specific items to contribute toward the FY09 NIW regional priorities in the
USGS-NEHRP-ERP request for proposals.
The results of the discussion on the specific RFP items, and any action items voted on,
will be delivered immediately to the NIW regional coordinator. The PI will assemble a white
7
paper summarizing all the presentations and discussions as a project final report. All results will
be posted on the web.
Project Plan
About thirty participants are expected, with twenty-five or so not from Reno and having
their travel costs partly defrayed by the proposed project. Aside from inviting any geoscientist
with seismological interests in or results from the western Great Basin and Nevada, researchers
who have assembled community velocity models in other areas will be specifically invited. The
workshop should initiate multi-institutional collaborations resulting in a maintained, verifiable
Nevada Community Velocity Model being available by 2011.
The expected schedule of milestones is:
Dec. 1, 2007– Funding and project activities commence. Support of undergraduate student on the
project commences. By this date, the workshop will have been scheduled and a facility
booked in advance. Names of potential attendees will have been gleaned from the reports
of the June 2004 Earthscope GreatBREAK workshop in Tahoe City (Anderson, 2004;
http://www.seismo.unr.edu/greatbreak/contents/Report/Appendix3-Roster.htm) and the
Sept. 2006 California CVM workshop during SCEC in Palm Springs (C. Thurber, 2007).
Dec. 9, 2007– Workshop announcement and registration instructions posted on the web.
Announcement distributed to USGS, SSA, IRIS, and Earthscope email lists.
Announcement readied for posting at the 2007 Fall AGU meeting the next day.
Researchers who have assembled community velocity models in other areas specifically
invited. Assemble travel and hotel information and post on web.
Jan. 21, 2008– Anticipated deadline for registration and submittal of I-9 information by nonReno participants wishing to receive the honorarium for partial support of their travel,
hotel, and perdiem.
Jan. 22, 2008– Confirmation of workshop facility size and location at UNR, and expected
attendance numbers confirmed with caterers. Final confirming email to all participants
with any updates.
Jan. 28 & 29, 2008– Anticipated workshop dates. Honorarium checks available for pickup by
properly registered non-Reno participants.
Jan. 31, 2008– Delivery of specific items to contribute toward the FY09 NIW regional priorities
in the USGS-NEHRP-ERP request for proposals, to the USGS-ERP NIW regional
coordinator.
Feb. 14, 2008– Deadline for participants to submit presentation materials they desire to be posted
on the workshop web site, and distributed on CD-ROM with the white paper.
Mar. 31, 2008– The white paper developed as a result of the workshop will be submitted for
publication in forums such as SRL, EOS, or IRIS and Earthscope newsletters.
Nov. 30, 2008– Submittal of Annual Project Summary to the USGS. Completion of project.
Presentation of white paper two weeks later by PI at 2008 Fall AGU Meeting.
Feb. 28, 2009– Submittal of Final Project Report to the USGS.
8
Collaborating UNR Efforts
Several projects at and around the Nevada Seismological Lab are concerned with crustal
structure and earthquake shaking in the Reno area:
 David Von Seggern and Leiph Preston are conducting crustal tomographic inversions and
event relocations from regional earthquake phase data.
 PI Louie is conducting long-range crustal refraction surveys and assembling velocity models
acress the Great Basin with graduate student Michelle Heimgartner under DOE Geothermal
Program sponsorship (e.g., Louie et al., 2004a, 2005).
 Louie has created an archive of shallow shear-velocity profiles under USGS and DOE
sponsorship, where interactive maps can be used to access complete velocity-profile data at
http://mapserver.library.unr.edu/website/seismoweb/VS30/viewer.htm
 John Anderson, Rasool Anooshehpoor, Glenn Biasi, and graduate student Aasha Pancha are
characterizing ANSS recording sites in the Reno area, and collecting ANSS data to determine
empirical site response and to improve our capability to predict ground motions in the basin
in general, under USGS sponsorship (e.g., Pancha et al., 2004, 2006). PI Louie has also been
involved in these efforts, which used E3D to compute the preliminary synthetic time
histories.
FINAL REPORT AND DISSEMINATION OF RESULTS
All reports requested and required by the USGS will be submitted in a prompt and timely
manner, and the white paper developed as a result of the workshop will be submitted for
publication in forums such as SRL, EOS, or IRIS and Earthscope newsletters. The PI will offer to
host trial community models on a website much like the shear-velocity archive at
www.seismo.unr.edu/vs/archive, or the MA-CME page at www.seismo.unr.edu/ma. The specific
items discussed during the workshop for contribute to the FY09 NIW regional priorities in the
USGS-NEHRP-ERP request for proposals will be delivered to the NIW regional coordinator by
the end of January, 2008.
9
PROJECT PERSONNEL
This workshop will be arranged and conducted by principal investigator John Louie,
Professor of Geophysics at the University of Nevada, Reno.
Biographical Sketch of John N. Louie
Seismological Laboratory 174, Mackay School of Earth Sciences and Engineering
The University of Nevada, Reno, NV 89557-0141
(775) 784-4219; fax (775) 784-1833; louie@seismo.unr.edu
Current Position
Professor of Geophysics, Seismological Laboratory and Department of Geological Sciences and
Engineering, The University of Nevada, Reno; since July 2006; Assoc. since 1992.
Responsibilities include undergraduate and graduate instruction, supervision of M.S. and
Ph.D. degree candidates, and conducting a research program in seismology.
Selected Recent Sponsored Research
Collaborative research with CGS: Improving hazard maps and NGA models with Vs
measurements at 25 CISN stations in San Bernardino and Riverside, sponsored by the U.S.
Geological Survey, 1/2007 – 12/2007 for $50,000.
Developing a Wellington community earthquake hazard modeling environment, Fulbright
Senior Scholar Award to New Zealand, US Dept. of State, 2/2006-7/2006, sabbatical support.
Improving next-generation attenuation models with shear-velocity measurements at all
TriNet and strong-motion stations in LA, sponsored by the U.S. Geological Survey under
contract 05HQGR0078, 2/2005 – 1/2006 for $54,000.
3-D Evaluation of Ground-Shaking Potential in the Las Vegas Basin, sponsored by the
U.S. Dept. of Energy/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory 5/2002 - 9/2005 for $330,000
between 2 PIs.
Assembly of a crustal seismic velocity database for the Western Great Basin, sponsored
by the U.S. Dept. of Energy/Great Basin Center for Geothermal Energy 4/2002-9/2006 for
$302,668.
Relevant Publications
J. N. Louie, 2006, Numerical benchmark: Seismic modeling trials using E3D with the
ModelAssembler Community Modeling Environment: in Proceedings, Third International
Symposium on the Effects of Surface Geology on Seismic Motion, Grenoble, France, 30 Aug. 1 Sept., 10 pp.
W. A. Thelen, M. Clark, C. T. Lopez, C. Loughner, H. Park, J. B. Scott, S. B. Smith, B.
Greschke, and J. N. Louie, 2006, A transect of 200 shallow shear velocity profiles across the
Los Angeles Basin: Bull. Seismol. Soc. Amer., 96, no. 3 (June), pp. 1055-1067, doi:
10.1785/0120040093.
J. B. Scott, T. Rasmussen, B. Luke, W. Taylor, J. L. Wagoner, S. B. Smith, and J. N. Louie,
2006, Shallow shear velocity and seismic microzonation of the urban Las Vegas, Nevada
basin: Bull. Seismol. Soc. Amer., 96, no. 3 (June), pp. 1068-1077, doi: 10.1785/0120050044.
J. B. Scott, M. Clark, T. Rennie, A. Pancha, H. Park and J. N. Louie, 2004, A shallow shearvelocity transect across the Reno, Nevada area basin: Bull. Seismol. Soc. Amer., 94, no. 6
(Dec.), 2222-2228.
10
J. N. Louie, W. Thelen, S. B. Smith, J. B. Scott, M. Clark, 2004, The northern Walker Lane
refraction experiment: Pn arrivals and the northern Sierra Nevada root: Tectonophysics, 388,
no. 1-4, 253-269.
R. E. Abbott and J. N. Louie, 2000, Depth to bedrock using gravimetry in the Reno and Carson
City, Nevada area basins: Geophysics, 65, 340-350.
Institutional Qualifications– UNR
As one of the statewide research agencies of the University of Nevada, the Seismological
Laboratory is headed by a Director (J. Anderson) and Associate Director (J. Louie) who report to
the Dean of the College of Science. The Lab's current research staff consists of nine professional
seismologists. Other professionals include a Programmer-Systems Analyst, UNIX System
Administrator, and GIS Specialist. Technical staff members include two seismographic
technicians, one record analyst, and four graduate research assistants. The Seismological
Laboratory operates the Western Great Basin Seismic Network (USGS-ANSS Funding; digital
upgrades provided by the W.M. Keck Foundation) and the Yucca Mountain Digital Seismic
Network (DOE-HRC Funding). These networks now include more than four-dozen state-of-theart high-dynamic-range real-time digital stations. Thirty-six ANSS strong-motion stations have
been established as well in the Reno, Carson, and Las Vegas urban areas. Earthquake data are
manipulated using the Antelope and CSS database systems developed by BRTT, allowing us to
interchange both real-time and archived catalog, seismogram, and ShakeMap products with the
CISN, Oregon, Arizona, and Utah seismic networks through data centers at Caltech, Menlo Park,
Berkeley, San Diego, and Salt Lake City, as well as with the Earthscope observatory. Much of
the high-dynamic-range digital station data are archived in real time at the IRIS Data
Management Center.
In partnership with the Nevada Applied Research Initiative, Lawrence Livermore
National Lab, and Optim Inc., the Seismo Lab established the Collaboratory for Computational
Geosciences (CCoG; www.seismo.unr.edu/ccog) facility in October 2002, a 30-CPU Beowulf
parallel processor with 60-Gbyte RAM. CCoG is primarily dedicated to seismogram inversion
and modeling, and runs Larsen’s E3D viscoelastic seismic modeling code from LLNL through
the aces.dri.edu Nevada Environmental Computing Grid web portal.
Additional computer hardware consists of four Sun servers and twenty Sun workstations
with speeds up to 1 GHz, ten Pentium II-IV and AMD Athlon UNIX workstations, and
numerous PCs and Macintoshes. These processors are used mainly for research applications and
provide a basis for analysis of the accumulating network data base. Seismic reflection data sets
are processed both with John Louie's open-source JRG system for research
(www.seismo.unr.edu/jrg), and with the industry-standard Halliburton ProMAX system.
One of the servers hosts the Lab's web site www.seismo.unr.edu, which is one of the
University's most popular public outreach programs at 30,000-300,000 hits per day. Seismo Lab
staff lead facility tours for thousands of local K-12 students each year. Local teachers return to
the Lab with their classes year after year because the tours actually fulfill items in the State
science standards, at any grade. The Lab’s Real Time K-12 Educational Seismic Network
(www.seismo.unr.edu/k12network/) has established earthquake-monitoring stations, with
complementary educational programs, at twenty-four public and private schools throughout
Nevada.
The University is wired for 100 Mbps full-duplex ethernet, with high-speed gigabit
connections available to all servers. All buildings on campus connect via a gigabit fiber network,
11
which has a fiber connection at 155 Mbps to the nearest CALREN/vBNS/Abilene gigaPoP at
U.C. Davis, and a 655 Mbps connection to Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, and CALREN at UCSD in
southern California.
Project Management Plan
The project will last one year. PI Dr. John Louie will be responsible for the completion of all
tasks, completion of the project, and submittal of required reports. The expected schedule
of milestones is given above in the Project Plan.
Current Support and Pending Applications — John N. Louie
Current:
USGS-NEHRP: Collaborative research with CGS: Improving hazard maps and NGA models
with Vs measurements at 25 CISN stations in San Bernardino and Riverside, $50,000,
1/1/2007 – 12/31/2007, Louie (0.25 summer month).
Dept. of Energy/Great Basin Center for Geothermal Energy: Continued implementation of a
database of crustal geophysical controls on geothermal resource assessment, $81,211,
7/1/2005–9/30/2007, Louie (0.1 summer month total).
Pending:
USGS-NEHRP: Basin model improvements and verification for Reno area 3-d scenario
modeling, $50,862.55, 1/1/2008 – 12/31/2008, Louie (0.25 summer month), Preston, and
Tibuleac.
USGS-NEHRP: Workshop on Nevada 3-d seismic community velocity models, $9963,
10/1/2007 – 9/30/2008, Louie (0.05 summer month).
12