DOCSLIB.ORG

Prepared Rebuttal Testimony of John Geesman on Behalf

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Prepared Rebuttal Testimony of John Geesman on Behalf California Energy Commission Case No: A.12-11-009 DOCKETED Exhibit No: A4NR-1 13-IEP-1J Witness: John Geesman TN 71511 JUL 02 2013 Application of Pacific Gas and Electric ) Company for Authority, Among Other Things, ) to Increase Rates and Charges for Electric and ) Application 12-11-009 Gas Service Effective on January 1, 2014. ) (Filed November 15, 2012) (U 39 M) ) __________________________________________ ) ) And Related Matter. ) Investigation 13-03-007 __________________________________________) PREPARED REBUTTAL TESTIMONY OF JOHN GEESMAN ON BEHALF OF THE ALLIANCE FOR NUCLEAR RESPONSIBILITY BEFORE THE PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA JUNE 28, 2013 TABLE OF CONTENTS I. PURPOSE OF THIS TESTIMONY……………………………………………………………………2 II. PG&E’s REFUSAL TO APPLY LICENSE-REQUIRED TESTS TO NEW SEISMIC INFORMATION……………..…………………………………………………………………………….4 III. PG&E’s INTERNAL EMAILS …………………………………………………………………………6 IV. SIGNIFICANCE OF MORE CONSERVATIVE DAMPING ASSUMPTIONS………………………….………………………………………………………………..8 V. NRC STAFF’S DETERMINATION OF LICENSE VIOLATION ……………………………10 VI. PECULIAR COMMENTS FROM NEW NRC BRANCH CHIEF ……………………......13 VII. WITHDRAWAL OF PG&E’s LAR; DDE ANALYSES DEFERRED TO 2015…….…………………………………………………………………………………………………..15 VIII. NRC ENFORCEMENT FORBEARANCE = DE FACTO LICENSE AMENDMENT? ...........…………………………………………………………………………....19 IX. SELECTING THE WRONG LEVEL SSHAC ..…………………………………………………..22 X. PACKING THE SSHAC WITH PG&E INSIDERS................................................23 XI. OPENLY EMBRACING COGNITIVE BIAS........................................................24 XII. SCALING BACK THE SSHAC...........................................................................27 XIII. CPUC HAS TO START SOMEWHERE..............................................................33 i REBUTTAL TESTIMONY OF JOHN GEESMAN, ATTORNEY FOR ALLIANCE FOR NUCLEAR RESPONSIBILITY (“A4NR”) Q: Please state your name and business address for the record. A: My name is John Geesman, and my business address is: Dickson Geesman LLP, 1999 Harrison Street, Suite 2000, Oakland, CA 94612. Q: Are your professional qualifications included in your testimony? A: Yes, my professional qualifications are contained in Appendix A to my testimony. Q: Was your testimony prepared by you or under your direction? A: Yes, it was. Q: Insofar as your testimony contains material that is factual in nature, do you believe it to be correct? A: Yes, I do. Q: Insofar as your testimony contains matters of opinion or judgment, does it represent your best judgment? A: Yes, it does. Q: Does this written submittal complete your prepared testimony and professional qualifications? 1 A: Yes, it does. I. PURPOSE OF THIS TESTIMONY. The purpose of this testimony is to document, using materials recently provided by PG&E after A4NR’s successful Motion to Compel Discovery,1 the inapplicability of the “safety first” culture claims of PG&E witnesses Anthony F. Earley, Jr.2 and Christopher P. Johns3 to PG&E’s seismic assessments at Diablo Canyon. The testimony details PG&E’s response, shortly after the San Bruno explosion, to the challenge of subjecting new information about the Shoreline Fault to the demanding analytic requirements of the Diablo Canyon operating licenses. It identifies a sustained effort by PG&E to evade the most onerous of these requirements, the conservative assumptions about damping and soil-structure interaction associated with the Double Design Earthquake, culminating with an effort by PG&E shortly after the Fukushima catastrophe to simply amend the bothersome tests out of its Diablo Canyon licenses. While A4NR considers PG&E’s conduct in this matter to be profound misfeasance, the point of this testimony is not to lure the California Public Utilities Commission (“Commission” or “CPUC”) into a subject more properly regulated by the federal government under the Atomic Energy Act.4 Instead, A4NR asks the Commission to consider this example in evaluating the 1 A.12-11-009, Ruling of ALJ Thomas R. Pulsifer, May 1, 2013. 2 PG&E-1, pp. 1-1 to 1-5. Mr. Earley is Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer and President of PG&E Corporation. 3 PG&E-1, pp. 2-1 to 2-7. Mr. Johns is President of Pacific Gas and Electric Company. 4 42 U.S.C. § 2011 et seq. 2 prudence of PG&E’s conduct of the seismic evaluations for which it seeks ratepayer funding in this proceeding. The Commission should quickly recognize the high stakes which California has in assuring the integrity of PG&E’s review of seismic issues at Diablo Canyon. Based on additional materials recently provided by PG&E in response to A4NR’s successful Motion to Compel Discovery, this testimony reveals the Diablo Canyon Senior Seismic Hazard Assessment Committee (“SSHAC”) – especially its ground motion characterization activities – to be an insular, corner-cutting exercise in the self-justification of past work rather than an objective, robust, scientific inquiry. Countering the overly simplistic recommendation of the Division of Ratepayer Advocates (“DRA”) to cap ratepayer funding,5 A4NR’s testimony proposes a more comprehensive remedy: establish a two-way balancing account for Nuclear Regulatory Commission (“NRC”) rulemaking expenses; provide for recovery of expenditures through PG&E’s annual ERRA filing; engage the Commission’s existing Independent Peer Review Panel in the SSHAC process; and require PG&E to record 50% of its forecast SSHAC costs below-the- line, consistent with D.11-05-018’s treatment of “advocacy” expenditures for Nuclear Energy Institute membership. Rather than rely solely on A4NR’s characterization of PG&E’s conduct, this testimony attaches each of the pertinent documents as an appendix and invites the Commission to judge for itself whether PG&E’s request constitutes a reasonable proposed expenditure of ratepayer funds. 5 DRA-11, pp. 71 – 74. 3 II. PG&E’s REFUSAL TO APPLY LICENSE-REQUIRED TESTS TO NEW SEISMIC INFORMATION. PG&E’s initial 2008 assessment that the discovery of the Shoreline Fault would have no impact on Diablo Canyon operability was based on the ground motion response spectra developed between 1984 and 1991 for its Long-Term Seismic Program (“LTSP”). This operability determination was endorsed by the NRC’s preliminary evaluation of the Shoreline Fault in April of 2009. However, the day after completion of a two-day, seismic information public workshop in San Luis Obispo on September 8 and 9, 2010, the NRC’s Senior Resident Inspector, Dr. Michael Peck, posed the question to PG&E of whether the probabilistic approach of the LTSP should be the sole method of evaluating operability or whether the Shoreline Fault information should also be compared to Diablo Canyon’s design basis as well. Significantly, two of the elements of the plant’s licensed design basis, the Design Earthquake (“DE”) and the Double Design Earthquake (“DDE”), include materially more conservative assumptions about damping and soil-structure interaction than the third element, the Hosgri Evaluation (“HE”), which was the basis for the LTSP ground motion response spectra. The magnitude of these differences is identified in the table included in Section 3.7.1.3 of Diablo Canyon’s Final Safety Analysis Report Update (“FSARU”): Type of Structure % of Critical Damping DE DDE HE Containment structures and all internal concrete structures 2.0 5.0 7.0 Other conventionally reinforced concrete structures above ground, such as shear walls or rigid frames 5.0 5.0 7.0 Welded structural steel assemblies 1.0 1.0 4.0 Bolted or riveted steel assemblies 2.0 2.0 7.0 4 Mechanical components (PG&E purchased) 2.0 2.0 4.0 Vital piping systems (except reactor coolant loop) 0.5 0.5 3.0 Reactor coolant loop 1.0 1.0 4.0 Replacement Steam Generators 2.0 4.0 4.0 Integrated Head Assembly 4.0 6.85 6.85 CRDMs (Unit 2) 3.0 4.0 4.0 Foundation rocking (containment structure only) 5.0 5.0 NA Dr. Peck’s inquiry set off a troubling chain of events which, over the next two years would include: PG&E’s unseemly efforts to avoid performing such analyses; the NRC staff’s determination that PG&E had violated its license by failing to perform the required analyses; PG&E’s attempt to amend the requirements out of its license rather than comply; PG&E’s acknowledgment in a Form 10-Q filing that failure of its license amendment strategy could result in the shutdown of Diablo Canyon; peculiar advice to PG&E from Dr. Peck’s new supervisor, Neil O’Keefe, that the utility should eliminate the DDE from the licensing basis or appear to be “covering something up”; Dr. Peck’s submission of a rare “Non-Concurrence” when NRC management allowed PG&E to avoid performing the analyses; Mr. O’Keefe’s response to the Non-Concurrence that no facts were in dispute and, despite overtones of safety, the actual questions were “procedural”; 5 PG&E’s withdrawal of its proposed license amendment after the NRC staff allowed it to delay the DDE test until completion of its post-Fukushima seismic evaluation (i.e., the current SSHAC process) in 2015; the NRC’s acknowledgment that the 2015 analyses would “most likely” show satisfying the DDE tests still to be a problem. III. PG&E’s INTERNAL EMAILS. According to Dr. Peck’s Non-Concurrence,6 the NRC concluded in September, 2010 that “an earthquake on the Shoreline Fault could produce about 70 percent greater peak ground motion [than] assumed in the DDE/safe shutdown earthquake design basis.”7 PG&E’s January, 2011 Shoreline Fault Zone report to the NRC reached the same conclusion for not only the Shoreline Fault, but also the San Luis Bay Fault and Los Osos Fault. The following excerpts from PG&E’s internal emails (with emphases added by A4NR), obtained recently as a result of A4NR’s successful Motion to Compel Discovery, provide insight into PG&E’s reaction to Dr. Peck’s September 10, 2010 question (coincidentally, the San Bruno explosion occurred on September 9, 2010):8 • Sept. 14, 2010: “This issue was raised again by Peck at 605 mtg.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • NEPEC) 1 September 2016, 12:00 to 2:00 PM EDT, Via Phone and Webex
    Meeting summary: National Earthquake Prediction Evaluation Council (NEPEC) 1 September 2016, 12:00 to 2:00 PM EDT, via phone and Webex Main topics: 1. Completion of NEPEC statement on proper posing and testing of earthquake predictions. 2. Updates on previous topics. 3. Chair transition. Note: Copies of presentations noted below available on request to Michael Blanpied <[email protected]>. Agenda: The meeting was opened at 12:05 PM, with members, speakers and guests joined by phone and logged into a Webex session for sharing of slide presentations. After a roll call (attendees are listed at the end of this summary) and review of the agenda, Mike Blanpied and Bill Leith thanked and praised Terry Tullis for his outstanding service as chair of the NEPEC, and welcomed Roland Bürgmann to the chairmanship. Discussion of draft NEPEC statement, with goal of completing for delivery to USGS Tullis asked members for comments on a draft report, “Evaluation of Earthquake Predictions,” which the council has prepared at the request of USGS. Hearing no comments, Tullis thanked a writing team that had led the final phase of document development, and declared the document final and approved. Decision: NEPEC declared final their opinion document, “Evaluation of Earthquake Predictions.” Action: Tullis to send the report with cover letter to USGS Director Suzette Kimball. Update on Pacific Northwest earthquake communication plan development Joan Gomberg summarized progress of a project that aims to create an earthquake risk communications plan for the Casacadia region encompassing the western reaches of Washington, Oregon, northern California and British Columbia. NEPEC had earlier identified the need for such a plan, noting that it will be challenging for earthquake science experts residing in many federal, state and private institutions to swiftly agree on data interpretation and conclusions when faced with “situations of concern” such as a large offshore earthquake, large subduction interface creep event, or maverick earthquake prediction that catches public attention.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 Agenda 2016 UJNR Meeting, Napa, CA Wednesday, 16 November 2016 08:30 Welcoming Remarks (Dr. William Leith, Mr. Masato Kano)
    1 Agenda 2016 UJNR Meeting, Napa, CA Wednesday, 16 November 2016 08:30 Welcoming Remarks (Dr. William Leith, Mr. Masato Kano) Session 1 National Policies, Strategies Programs, Networks, and ongoing/upcoming Projects 08:45 William Leith “Update on the Earthquake Hazards Program” 09:00 Gerald Bawden “DeVelopment of a GNSS-Enhanced Tsunami Early Warning System” 09:15 Naoshi Hirata “Japanese earthquake researches for seismic and tsunami disaster reduction” 09:30 Gerald Bawden “NISAR – NASA and ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar Mission OVerView of the mission and science objectiVes” 09:45 Elizabeth Cochran “The Path Towards Public Earthquake Early Warning for the Western U.S.” 10:00 Morgan Moschetti “The 2014 Update of the U.S. National Seismic Hazard Model” 10:15 Gavin Hayes “Recent advances in earthquake response and research at the USGS NEIC” 10:30-10:45 Break Session 2 The 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake Sequence 10:45 Noriko Kamaya “The 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake - OVerView of the Seismic ActiVity and New Guidelines for the Seismic Forecast Information after Big Earthquakes” 11:00 Masayuki Yoshimi “Strong ground motion of the 2016 Kumamoto earthquake obserVed in the midst of seVerely damaged area” 11:15 Norimitsu Nakata “Seismicity and structure responses following the 2016 Kumamoto earthquake” 2 11:30 Takahiko Uchide “Fault model of the 2016 Kumamoto earthquake inferred from hypocenter distribution and strong-motion records” 11:45 Tomokazu Kobayashi “Detailed ground surface displacement and fault ruptures of the 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake Sequence
    [Show full text]
  • Proceedings of the 11Th United States-Japan Natural Resources Panel for Earthquake Research, Napa Valley, California, November 16–18, 2016
    Proceedings of the 11th United States-Japan Natural Resources Panel for Earthquake Research, Napa Valley, California, November 16–18, 2016 Edited By Shane Detweiler and Fred Pollitz Open-File Report 2017–1133 U.S. Department of the Interior U.S. Geological Survey U.S. Department of the Interior RYAN K. ZINKE, Secretary U.S. Geological Survey William H. Werkheiser, Acting Director U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, Virginia: 2017 For more information on the USGS—the Federal source for science about the Earth, its natural and living resources, natural hazards, and the environment—visit https://www.usgs.gov/ or call 1–888–ASK–USGS (1–888–275–8747). For an overview of USGS information products, including maps, imagery, and publications, visit https://store.usgs.gov. Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government. Although this information product, for the most part, is in the public domain, it also may contain copyrighted materials as noted in the text. Permission to reproduce copyrighted items must be secured from the copyright owner. The abstracts by non-U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) authors in this volume are published as they were submitted. Abstracts authored entirely by non-USGS authors do not represent the views or position of the USGS or the U.S. Government and are published solely as part of this volume. Suggested citation: Detweiler, S., and Pollitz, F., eds., 2017, Proceedings of the 11th United States-Japan natural resources panel for earthquake research, Napa Valley, California, November 16–18, 2016: U.S.
    [Show full text]
  • Secondary Aftershocks and Their Importance for Aftershock Forecasting by Karen R
    Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, Vol. 93, No. 4, pp. 1433–1448, August 2003 Secondary Aftershocks and Their Importance for Aftershock Forecasting by Karen R. Felzer, Rachel E. Abercrombie, and Go¨ran Ekstro¨m Abstract The potential locations of aftershocks, which can be large and damag- ing, are often forecast by calculating where the mainshock increased stress. We find, however, that the mainshock-induced stress field is often rapidly altered by after- shock-induced stresses. We find that the percentage of aftershocks that are secondary aftershocks, or aftershocks triggered by previous aftershocks, increases with time after the mainshock. If we only consider aftershock sequences in which all after- shocks are smaller than the mainshock, the percentage of aftershocks that are sec- ondary also increases with mainshock magnitude. Using the California earthquake catalog and Monte Carlo trials we estimate that on average more than 50% of after- shocks produced 8 or more days after M Ն5 mainshocks, and more than 50% of all aftershocks produced by M Ն7 mainshocks that have aftershock sequences lasting at least 15 days, are triggered by previous aftershocks. These results suggest that previous aftershock times and locations may be important predictors for new after- shocks. We find that for four large aftershock sequences in California, an updated forecast method using previous aftershock data (and neglecting mainshock-induced stress changes) can outperform forecasts made by calculating the static Coulomb stress change induced solely by the mainshock. Introduction It has long been observed that aftershocks may produce sequence. We also show that while the exact factors that their own aftershocks, commonly known as secondary af- determine aftershock location may be many and complex, tershocks (Richter, 1958).
    [Show full text]
  • Computing a Large Refined Catalog of Focal Mechanisms for Southern California
    Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, Vol. 102, No. 3, pp. 1179–1194, June 2012, doi: 10.1785/0120110311 Ⓔ Computing a Large Refined Catalog of Focal Mechanisms for Southern California (1981–2010): Temporal Stability of the Style of Faulting by Wenzheng Yang, Egill Hauksson, and Peter M. Shearer Abstract Using the method developed by Hardebeck and Shearer (2002, 2003) termed the HASH method, we calculate focal mechanisms for earthquakes that occurred in the southern California region from 1981 to 2010. When available, we use hypocenters refined with differential travel times from waveform cross correlation. Using both the P-wave first motion polarities and the S/P amplitude ratios computed from three-component seismograms, we determine mechanisms for more than 480,000 earthquakes and analyze the statistical features of the whole catalog. We filter the preliminary catalog with criteria associated with mean nodal plane uncertainty and azimuthal gap and obtain a high-quality catalog with approximately 179,000 focal mechanisms. As more S/P amplitude ratios become available after 2000, the average nodal plane uncertainty decreases significantly compared with mechanisms that in- clude only P-wave polarities. In general the parameters of the focal mechanisms have been stable during the three decades. The dominant style of faulting is high angle strike-slip faulting with the most likely P axis centered at N5°E. For earthquakes of M<2:5, there are more normal-faulting events than reverse-faulting events, while the opposite holds for M>2:5 events. Using the 210 moment-tensor solutions in Tape et al. (2010) as benchmarks, we compare the focal plane rotation angles of common events in the catalog.
    [Show full text]
  • NEPEC) Wednesday and Thursday, September 10-11, 2008
    Meeting Agenda (Draft) National Earthquake Prediction Evaluation Council (NEPEC) Wednesday and Thursday, September 10-11, 2008. Boardroom, Hilton Palm Springs Resort 400 East Tahquitz Canyon Way, Palm Springs, CA Wednesday, September 10 2:00 pm Introductions, review agenda Jim Dieterich 2:15 Earthquake Rupture Forecasts: UCERF wrap-up and looking forward Ned Field Ned will begin with a summary of how the Working Group wrapped up work on UCERF2 and how those results were transmitted to the public and for use by the CEA and National Seismic Hazard Mapping Project. He will then give his thoughts on research required to improve future time-dependent rupture forecasts and hazard assessments. 3:15 Break 3:30 Update on SCEC-sponsored activities Terry Tullis Terry will brief the Council on the suite of research supported under SCEC’s focus group on Earthquake Forecasting and Predictability, and on the coordination of development of earthquake simulator software. 3:45 Research funding: CEA Tom Jordan, Ned Field Tom and Ned will give an update on the status of discussions between CEA, USGS, CGS and SCEC on continued CEA support of UCERF development. 4:00 CSEP: Status and plans Tom Jordan, Danijel Schorlemmer Tom will brief the Council on development of an international Colaboratory for Study of Earthquake Predictability, international and domestic activities, tests already underway, and potential for expansion to a broader suite of prediction types. Danijel will report on work to establish testing centers in California, Zurich, Japan, New Zealand and elsewhere. 5:00 NEPEC discussion 5:30 Adjourn Thursday, September 11 8:30 Continental breakfast (in the meeting room) 9:00 Administrative updates Mike Blanpied 9:15 Science updates: M8/MSc, GEM, others Council, guests 9:45 Analysis of Accelerated Moment Release (AMR) method Jeanne Hardebeck Jeanne will describe results from a suite of observational tests applied to the Accelerating Moment Release earthquake prediction hypothesis.
    [Show full text]
  • Annual Meeting
    Southern California Earthquake Center ANNUAL MEETING Hierarchical Seismic Networks around the San Jacinto Fault Zone Waveforms, Spectrograms & Correlograms Local Time (hours) -117.5 -117.0 -116.5 -116.0 -115.5 (Ben-Zion et al, 2015) 19 21 23 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 x 10-2 20250 162 10-100 Hz 34.5 150 1 0 Freq (Hz) 50 4000 -1 0 34.0 -4000 -2 250 -3 2 x 10 100-200 Hz 150 1 P1 Freq (Hz) 50 0 P2 33.5 5000 -1 P3 0 -5000 -2 P4 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 -0.2 -0.1 0 .01 0.2 UTC Time (hours) Correlation Time (s) 33.0 33.75 1 32.5 -117.5 -117.0 -116.5 -116.0 -115.5 33.50 Vp (km/s) 2 5.0 5.4 5.8 6.2 6.6 7.0 Vs 33.25 0 3.6 5 Profile 1 -117.00 -116.75 116.50 10 3.4 15 3 Rayleigh Group Velocities (m/s) 3.2 0 Profile 2 Frequency = 3 Hz 3.0 5 33.542 10 2.8 15 Depth (km) 2.6 33.540 4 0 Profile 3 (km/s) Depth (km) 5 10 33.538 15 (Zigone et al, 2015) 0 5 5 Profile 4 33.536 (Roux et al, 2016) 34.5 10 34.0 15 -116.595 -116.592 -116.589 -116.0 (Allam & Ben-Zion, 2012) 33.5 -116.5 -117.0 -40 -20 0 20 40 60 250 350 450 550 650 33.0 -117.5 Fault Normal Distance (km) MEETING PROGRAM September 10-14, 2016 Core Institutions and Board of Directors (BoD) The Board of Directors (BoD) is the USC Harvard Texas A&M UC Santa Barbara USGS Menlo Park primary decision-making body of SCEC; Tom Jordan, Chair Jim Rice Patrick Fulton Ralph Archuleta R.
    [Show full text]
  • Annual Meeting
    Southern California Earthquake Center 2010Annual Meeting Proceedings and Abstracts, Volume XX September 11-15, 2010 S C E C an NSF+USGS center ANNUAL MEETING of the Southern California Earthquake Center Proceedings and Abstracts, Volume XX Cover Image: Section of the Borrego fault rupture formed during the 4 April 2010 El Mayor-Cucapah earthquake. (Peter Gold, Austin Elliott, Michael Oskin, and Alejandro Hinojosa. Image was generated in LidarViewer software developed by Oliver Kreylos at the W.M. Keck Center for Active Visualization in the Earth Sciences (KeckCAVES) at UC Davis.) Center Organization SCEC ORGANIZATION SCEC ADVISORY COUNCIL Center Director, Tom Jordan Mary Lou Zoback, Chair, Risk Management Solutions Deputy Director, Greg Beroza Jeffrey Freymueller, Chair-Designate, U. Alaska Associate Director for Administration, John McRaney Gail Atkinson, U. Western Ontario Associate Director for Communication, Education, Roger Bilham, U. of Colorado (new member 2010) and Outreach, Mark Benthien Donna Eberhart-Phillips, UC Davis Associate Director for Information Technology, Phil Maechling John Filson, U.S. Geological Survey (Emeritus) Special Projects and Events Coordinator, Tran Huynh Jim Goltz, CalEMA Research Contracts and Grants Coordinator, Steve Mahin, PEER Karen Young Anne Meltzer, Lehigh University Administrative Coordinator, Deborah Gormley Denis Mileti, U. Colorado (Emeritus) Education Programs Manager, Robert de Groot M. Meghan Miller, UNAVCO Digital Products Manager, John Marquis Farzad Naeim, John A. Martin & Associates
    [Show full text]
  • NEPEC) Wednesday and Thursday, September 10-11, 2008
    Draft Summary Meeting Summary National Earthquake Prediction Evaluation Council (NEPEC) Wednesday and Thursday, September 10-11, 2008. Hilton Palm Springs Resort, Palm Springs, CA Attending: NEPEC Members: James Dieterich, University of California, Riverside (Chair) David Applegate (Co-chair, by phone) David Jackson, University of California, Los Angeles Evelyn Roeloffs, USGS, Vancouver, WA Barbara Romanowicz, University of California, Berkeley Bruce Shaw, Columbia University Wayne Thatcher, USGS, Menlo Park Jeroen Tromp, California Institute of Technology Robert Wesson, USGS Emeritus, Golden {Members Arrowsmith, Ekstrom, Ellsworth and Zoback did not attend} USGS Staff: Guests: Mike Blanpied (NEPEC executive secretary) Jim Brune, University of Nevada, Reno Nick Beeler Tran Huynh, SCEC Ned Field* Tom Jordan*, SCEC Jeanne Hardebeck* Mike Reichle*, CGS, retired Lucy Jones David Rhodes, New Zealand Danijel Schorlemmer*, SCEC * Invited speakers Terry Tullis*, Brown University Ned Field — Earthquake Rupture Forecasts: UCERF wrap-up and looking forward. Field described the products that accompanied the release of the Uniform California Earthquake Rupture Forecast version 2 (UCERF2), which, along with newly available Next-Generation Attenuation (NGA) relations, were used in calculations of time-independent hazard in the 2008 USGS National Seismic Hazard Maps (NSHM), and calculations of time-dependent hazard under consideration for rate adjustments by the California Earthquake Authority (CEA). Field listed lessons learned during completion of the UCERF study. He explained that the UCERF model represents “best available science,” but is extremely complex and unwieldy. A number of its features exist because they were inherited from earlier efforts, were required to match procedures used to build the NSHM, or are place-holders used with recognition that further research will lead to improved methods.
    [Show full text]
  • Faulting, Damage, and Intensity in the Canyondam Earthquake of May 23, 2013
    Faulting, Damage, and Intensity in the Canyondam Earthquake of May 23, 2013 By K. Chapman, M.B. Gold, John Boatwright, J. Sipe, V. Quitoriano, D. Dreger, and Jeanne Hardebeck Open-File Report 2016–1145 U.S. Department of the Interior U.S. Geological Survey Cover. “Did You Feel It” (DYFI) ZIP-Code map for the area around Lake Almanor, California. Locations for interviews, the Plumas County Office of Emergency Services reports, and the geocoded DYFI reports are superimposed on the map. MMI, Modified Mercalli Intensity. Faulting, Damage, and Intensity in the Canyondam Earthquake of May 23, 2013 By K. Chapman, M.B. Gold, John Boatwright, J. Sipe, V. Quitoriano, D. Dreger, and Jeanne Hardebeck Open-File Report 2016–1145 U.S. Department of the Interior U.S. Geological Survey U.S. Department of the Interior SALLY JEWELL, Secretary U.S. Geological Survey Suzette M. Kimball, Director U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, Virginia: 2016 For more information on the USGS—the Federal source for science about the Earth, its natural and living resources, natural hazards, and the environment—visit http://www.usgs.gov/ or call 1–888–ASK–USGS (1–888–275–8747). For an overview of USGS information products, including maps, imagery, and publications, visit http://store.usgs.gov/. Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government. Although this information product, for the most part, is in the public domain, it also may contain copyrighted materials as noted in the text. Permission to reproduce copyrighted items must be secured from the copyright owner.
    [Show full text]
  • SCEC Award #14024
    Workshop Report for “Community Stress Model (CSM) Workshop” SCEC Award #14024 PIs: Jeanne Hardebeck (USGS) Brad Aagaard (USGS) Thorsten Becker (USC) David Sandwell (Scripps) Bruce Shaw (Columbia) John Shaw (Harvard) CSM Progress to Date: Crustal stress is a fundamental quantity that is relevant to many aspects of the earthquake problem. SCEC4 has committed to the development of the Community Stress Model (CSM) to provide the SCEC community with better constraints on the stress field, and with a means to formally test physical connections between observations and stress models. The intended CSM end-product, a model or suite of models for the stress tensor in the California lithosphere, will be useful for numerous SCEC core science issues. These include a better understanding of how faults are loaded, redistribute strain via earthquakes, and evolve over time. There is a range of potential uses for the CSM, including seismic hazard estimates, earthquake stress interaction studies, dynamic earthquake rupture models and earthquake simulators. Moreover, even the discussions of the issues involved in the construction of a CSM are leading to scientific progress. The initial effort of the CSM was to compile and compare all of the existing relevant models held by the SCEC community. A call went out for contribution of data and models, and 16 models were submitted, primarily models of stress or stressing rate in the upper crust. At the 2012 CSM Workshop, we compared the submitted models, and discovered an encouraging agreement between models on the stress orientations throughout southern California, and on the stressing rate and its orientation along the major faults of the San Andreas system.
    [Show full text]
  • Patterns of Co-Seismic Strain Computed from Southern California Focal Mechanisms
    Geophys. J. Int. (2009) 177, 1015–1036 doi: 10.1111/j.1365-246X.2009.04090.x Patterns of co-seismic strain computed from southern California focal mechanisms Iain W. Bailey, Thorsten W. Becker and Yehuda Ben-Zion Department of Earth Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA. E-mail: [email protected] Accepted 2008 December 24. Received 2008 December 22; in original form 2008 February 29 SUMMARY Geometrical properties of an earthquake population can be described by summation of seismic potency tensors that provide a strain-based description of earthquake focal mechanisms. We apply this method to ∼170 000 potency tensors for 0 < ML ≤ 5 southern California earthquakes recorded between January 1984 and June 2003. We compare summed tensors for populations defined by faulting region and earthquake magnitude to investigate the relation between earthquake characteristics, tectonic domains and fault-related length scales. We investigate spatial scales ranging from ∼1–700 km and use the results to identify systematic differences between seismic behaviour for different faults and different regions. Our results show features that are indicative of both scale-invariant and scale-dependent processes. On the largest scale the overall potency tensor summation for southern California 0 < ML ≤ 5 earthquakes over ∼20 yr corresponds closely to a double-couple (DC) mechanism with slip direction parallel to relative plate motion. The summed tensors and derived quantities for the different regions show clear persistent variations that are related to the dominant tectonic regime of each region. Significant differences between the non-DC components of the summed tensors, which we relate to fault heterogeneity, indicate systematic differences in deformation associated with earthquake populations from different fault zones or different magnitude ranges.
    [Show full text]