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From June 29th to July 1st, the Centre for the Observation and Modelling of Earthquakes, Volcanoes and Tectonics (COMET) co-hosted a workshop with GEM at the Earth Sciences Department, University of Oxford, UK. The event brought together 25 participants from 12 institutes with diverse research interests, including: active tectonics, paleoseismology, precariously balanced rocks, strain mapping, ground motion modelling, physics-based fault modelling, observational seismology, induced seismicity, and volcanology.

The workshop theme was to find the intersection between seismic hazard analysis and the research topics of interest to COMET scientists, with the goals of learning how their research results are currently used by seismic hazard modellers, and imagining ways to increase their utility. The workshop aimed to achieve these goals with a balance of PSHA lectures, OpenQuake Engine training, interactive exercises, discussion, and participant presentations.

On the first day, Kendra Johnson, GEM Hazard Scientist, gave an introduction to probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA) and walked the participants through the hazard component of the OpenQuake Engine.

On the second day, Richard Styron, GEM Active Faults Specialist, discussed bridging the gaps between research and seismic hazard models, delving into the issues and challenges in transitioning from being a hazard researcher to a hazard modeller. Marco Pagani, GEM Hazard Coordinator joined the discussion and provided his insights on the topic.

On the third day, the participants explored how the seismic source parameterization and assumptions made in the first steps of PSHA impact hazard calculation results. The workshop concluded with a lecture by Manuela Villani, GEM Senior Hazard Scientist, on incorporating epistemic uncertainties into PSHA, and brief research presentations by a few participants.

The workshop was organised as part of a collaborative project between the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) - COMET and GEM with funding support from NERC. The project is working to combine field data, InSAR, global navigation satellite system (GNSS), remote-sensing and block modelling to develop new seismic hazard models.

NERC is the leading funder of UK environmental science and a GEM public sponsor.