Improving seismic data flow enables scientific research on 'The Big One'

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No one can accurately predict when an earthquake will occur. Ever since the 6.7-magnitude Northridge earthquake in Los Angeles County in 1994, which killed 72 people, injured 9,000, and caused $25 billion in damage, Southern California has been anxiously awaiting the “big one”: a devastating quake expected to be as strong as At least 7.8 degrees and severe damage. 44 times stronger. Seismologists can only say that this may happen within the next 30 years.

Although scientists cannot predict when and where earthquakes will strike, preparedness is key to improving society's ability to withstand large earthquakes. In particular, the California Statewide Earthquake Center (SCEC) based at the University of Southern California has developed CyberShake, a computational platform that simulates hundreds of thousands of earthquakes to calculate regional seismic hazard models.

By revealing which geographic areas of Southern California are most at risk from severe tremors, their findings have influenced building codes in Los Angeles and earthquake modeling at the USGS, the nation's largest earth mapping and geosciences agency.

However, CyberShake studies — and much of modern science — rely heavily on data and computing. With multi-step calculations feeding numerous interconnected computational tasks performed on local and national supercomputers to simulate 600,000 different earthquakes, CyberShake's scientific workflow is complex. The Information Sciences Institute (ISI) at USC Viterbi houses the tools needed to create and manage such big data.

Ewa Dillmann, research professor of computer science and director of research at ISI, has designed and continually updated, since 2000, an automated workflow management system called Pegasus.

Optimized workflow

Pegasus—named after Execution Planning and Networking (PEG) and Dillman's love of horses—turns research experiments into improved workflows. It can be used by scientists in various fields from seismology to physics to bioinformatics due to its abstract design.

Dillman likens it to a cooking recipe: “You can use the same recipe in different kitchens. Different users can run the recipe (workflow) but with their own cooking tools (computational resources). When you design things in a broad enough way, they become broadly applicable.” “

In 2016, scientists from the Laser Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) used Pegasus to capture gravitational waves in the universe, confirming Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity and earning the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics. During the 16-year collaboration between computer scientists at ISI and LIGO members, The software manages thousands of workflows with millions of tasks.

The Center for Cooperative and Adaptive Sensing of the Atmosphere (CASA), an engineering research center dedicated to improving prediction and response to hazardous weather, has also moved its pipelines to Pegasus. Because severe weather can slow down and harm local resources and computing capabilities, the software sends CASA data to cloud infrastructures to ensure continuous workflow.

Inspired by animal behaviour

CyberShake has relied on Pegasus for the past 15 years, including its most recent study with the largest set of earthquake simulations to date. Pegasus managed 2.5 petabytes of data and ran 28,120 workflow tasks over 108 days to produce seismic hazard maps at 772,000 knots per hour.

“Without Pegasus, we wouldn't be able to do this kind of science,” said Scott Callahan, a computer scientist at SCEC and lead developer of CyberShake. SCEC will expand CyberShake to Northern California, using the world's fastest supercomputer, Frontier. Pegasus will continue to stay by their side.

“Every time we do one of these studies, we always face unexpected challenges. But I'm confident that if there are any workflow issues, the Pegasus team will be able to help us work through them so we can continue to get cutting-edge science,” Callahan said. .

Dillman is now researching and conceptualizing SWARM, another workflow management system inspired by the intelligent coordination of collective behaviors among social animals, such as ants. It also plans to enhance Pegasus's decision-making process with artificial intelligence, reimagining how workflow systems will operate in the future.

Provided by the University of Southern California

Citation: Optimizing earthquake data flow allows scientific research on 'big earthquake' (2024, May 29) Retrieved May 29, 2024 from https://phys.org/news/2024-05-optimizing-earthquake-scientific-big.html

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