Spatial Variability of Earthquake Ground Motion and Deformation: Examples of How Geospatial Analytics is Shaping our Understanding of Seismic Hazards

Introduction by: Dr. Dan Obenour

Summary: Efforts toward improving resiliency of urban environments to seismic hazards are challenged by highly variable ground motions and deformations over large scales. The geologic structures near the ground surface can exert a significant influence on earthquake ground motions and on the spatial extent of ground deformations. Our team uses geospatial analytics to understand the spatiotemporal variability of ground shaking and deformation, and to model their impact on civil infrastructure systems and the communities they serve. This forum presentation will provide examples of how we use geospatial analytics to interrogate geotechnical, geological and seismological data, as well as to advance modeling frameworks of geohazards at multiple scales. Case studies include lessons from the 2021 Nippes, Haiti, 2011 Christchurch, New Zealand, and 2011 Tohoku, Japan earthquakes.

About the speaker: Ashly Cabas is an Assistant Professor and leads the Geohazards and Earthquake Engineering (GeoQuake) research lab (https://cabas.wordpress.ncsu.edu/) in the Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering at North Carolina State University. She earned her B.S. at Universidad Católica Andrés Bello in Caracas, Venezuela, and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Civil Engineering at Virginia Tech. Dr. Cabas’ research interests are interdisciplinary with a focus on geotechnical earthquake engineering, engineering seismology, and more recently, human-centered approaches to disaster resilience. She is a recipient of an NSF CAREER Award in 2022 and the 2021 EERI Shah Family Innovation Prize. She is an Associate Editor of Earthquake Spectra and a member of the Board of Directors of the Seismological Society of America. Dr. Cabas is also the founder of the first Earthquake Engineering and Seismology Community Alliance in Latin America and the Caribbean (E²SCALA).

Recording: https://youtu.be/OLGtgPgCR04