GEON

SYNSEIS - SYNthetic SEISmogram generation tool

The SYNSEIS (SYNthetic SEISmogram) tool is a grid computing application to help seismologists calculate synthetic 3D regional seismic waveforms using a well-tested, finite difference code, E3D, developed by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. SYNSEIS is built as a grid application and accesses distributed data centers and large computational clusters (such as the Teragrid) minimizing the requirements needed to conduct such advance calculations. With SYNSEIS users only need to have access to the Internet and a browser. The entire system is web-based and is accessible from the GEON web page.

SYNSEIS is built using a service-based architecture with each sub-component in the system also exposed as a web service, allowing multiple use scenarios for each component if other researchers choose to re-use some of the resources. The system provides an interactive user interface with mapping tools and event/station/waveform extraction tools to allow users to seamlessly access the IRIS Data Management Center’s archives. Users are able to interactively set their study region, access seismic event and station locations, extract waveforms on the fly for any selected event-station pair, and compute a synthetic seismogram using built in tools.  Though the system currently uses a single 3D crustal model for the US, when more models become available they will be incorporated into the system.  SYNSEIS uses national-scale TeraGrid supercomputer center compute resources, eliminating all complexities and difficulties related to account management, cpu allocation, and software installation. The system is designed to be used in day-to-day research activities, especially those of EarthScope scientists who will be accessing data from hundreds of stations everyday and need to process the data in a timely fashion.

Current Capabilities of SYNSEIS:

• Interactive User Interface
• Real-time access to IRIS DMC database—Event, station, waveform access based on a dynamic map interface. Event selection based on date and location
• Ability to define (both graphically or lat-long based) events and station locations
• Base map choices of topography, geology, tectonic boundaries, and urban area boundaries
• Ability to use sediment thickness and Moho depth data sets seamlessly
• Ability to use variable thickness flat-layer models
• Ability to build 2D models using an interactive model builder
• Run jobs remotely at TG and/or local resources
• Ability to obtain waveform propagation movies on the fly
• Job monitoring
• Job archival mechanisms and resubmissions with revised parameters
• Source parameter sweep for multiple simulations
• Download capabilities for observed as well as simulated records