14 November 2017 – Seismological Research Letters (SRL) announces a “Focus Section on the Collaboratory for the Study of Earthquake Predictability: New Results and Future Directions.”
The global Collaboratory for the Study of Earthquake Predictability (CSEP) was formed in 2007 at the Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC) with support from the W. M. Keck Foundation to build a cyber-infrastructure for independent, reproducible and prospective evaluations of earthquake forecasting models and prediction algorithms. CSEP’s goal is to advance our understanding of earthquake predictability and to help government agencies assess the utility of earthquake forecasts and predictions for risk mitigation measures. CSEP testing centers are currently based in Los Angeles (SCEC), Tokyo (Earthquake Research Institute), Wellington (GNS Science) and Zurich (ETH Zurich) with plans for new centers in Potsdam (GFZ Potsdam) and Beijing (China Earthquake Administration). These centers conduct prospective testing of more than 400 models, model versions and algorithms that range in forecast horizon from the short-term (30 minutes, 1-day) to the long-term (5-years and 10-years). Thus far, only a fraction of the large amount of accumulating model evaluation results has been published.
This SRL focus section aims to publish new results from earthquake predictability research conducted within CSEP as well as original research about future directions for CSEP. Studies can include, but are not limited to: prospective and retrospective CSEP evaluations of short-term and long-term rate-based and alarm-based models from around the globe; inferences from CSEP test results regarding scientific hypotheses about earthquakes (i.e., what have we learned about earthquakes?); advances in testing methods, performance metrics and diagnostic tools (e.g. ensemble modelling, residual analysis); applications of CSEP testing methods outside of the testing centers; and blueprints for new CSEP evaluations tailored to new models and algorithms.
Individuals interested in submitting contributions should contact the guest editors to discuss their planned contribution prior to submission. Guest editors for this focus section are:
• Max Werner, University of Bristol, max.werner@bristol.ac.uk
• Andy Michael, USGS Menlo Park, michael@usgs.gov
The deadline for submissions is 1 February 2018 (early submissions are encouraged and may be processed sooner). Submit manuscripts via the SRL Editorial Manager using the article type “CSEP: New Results and Future Directions.” Detailed instructions on how to prepare an SRL manuscript can be found on the SRL Submission Guidelines page of the SSA website. Note that the maximum recommended length for SRL focus-section articles is 3000 words including the table and figure captions, but not the title, author affiliation, abstract and references. Longer papers may be submitted at the discretion of the editor. The acceptance deadline is 1 May 2018. Articles accepted to this focus section will be published online ahead of print and in the 2018 July-August issue of SRL.
Address questions about scientific issues to the guest editors or SRL Editor-in-Chief Zhigang Peng at srleditor@seismosoc.org. Address questions about submissions to SRL Managing Editor Mary George at srl@seismosoc.org.