Earthquake Rupture Forecast (ERF)

This is one of the two main modeling components in OpenSHA (the other being an IMR).

An ERF is essentially any entity that takes a Time Span, as well as settings for any of its adustable Parameters, and gives a forecast of all possible Earthquake Ruptures and their associated probabilities of occurrance.

In addition to being able to declare its Applicable Geographic Region (where it can be applied), an ERF must also provide the ability to get and set the following:

  • Time Span (which includes constraints on what start times an durations are allowed)
  • List of adustable Parameters (if any) the forecast depends upon

The resultant forecast is given as a list of:

Probabilistic Earthquake Sources

where each source is statistically independent, and gives a list of mutually exclusive Probabilistic Earthquake Ruptures (alternatively, one can request the nth Probabilistic Earthquake Rupture for the ith Probabilistic Earthquake Source directly from an ERF).

Graphically:

ERFs also provide other useful information that is not discussed here for brevity.

The following ERFs are currently implemented: