During the workshop some changes to working groups came up several times, including actively facilitating cross-fertilization and redefining/reorganizing the working groups. I would like to start a brainstorming discussion of how we might reorganize the working groups.
Some possible goals of a reorganization:
Facilitate cross-fertilization among disciplines.
Align the working groups with research topics / tasks / goals.
Facilitate interaction with partner organizations.
Make it easier to initiate and sunset working groups.
Here is my brain dump on a possible reorganization. I doubt I have sufficiently captured the breadth of the community. Please refine and/or provide completely different alternatives!
Education and Training
Best practices for education and training. Develop teaching modules.
Software Infrastructure
Best practices (software development and deployment) and standards (API, file formats) for software. Identify and develop common tools.
The Earthquake Cycle
Model the physics of the earthquake cycle (earthquake rupture and radiated seismic waves, postseismic deformation, interseismic deformation, …)
Imaging Earth
Determine the (mechanical?) properties of Earth
Landscape evolution
Modeling the physics of landscape evolution (deformation of the crust, surface processes, …)
Having a Working Group focused on a task or goal achievable in the <2’ish year time frame (bullet point 2) will create opportunities for more to be involved in CIG and create a mechanism that allows a group to easily dissolve (bullet point 4).
In addition, I see where your proposal promotes cross disciplinary (bullet point 1) and interactions across other organizations (bullet point 2).
Brad, this is a great idea. CIG Seismology has traditionally focused on wave propagation but nothing like dynamic rupture simulations – while we have seen such simulations in pylith. Mantle Convection still needs to slot somewhere. It would be nice to see which codes fall into multiple groups, and also which topics suggest other new codes would be needed.
Thanks for starting this discussion @baagaard and I like your proposed reorganization of working group topics, although as @carltape pointed out mantle convection would need to slot somewhere.
Regarding your note about initiating/sunsetting working groups, I wonder if we actually need to have standing committees for these topics.
Could the SSC keep track off CIG activities/initiatives across these topics and then be the primary group that organizes the formation of task-based groups with a definitive duration?
My understanding is the SSC currently reviews CIG postdoc applications. Perhaps the same could be done for groups proposing a CIG-supported meeting, staff assistance with a specific project, etc, etc?
In the above scenario, supported CIG activities are then more closely directed by an elected group and hopefully this would also promote more cross-fertilization among disciplines.
Thanks for starting this discussion @baagaard and I like your proposed reorganization of working group topics, although as @carltape pointed out mantle convection would need to slot somewhere.
I’m all in favor of discussing the working groups, especially the pros and cons of a potential new working group dedicated to seismic cycle simulations. There are many groups around the US and in the world that have developed modeling software for seismic cycle simulations and CIG could help this community organize itself. SCEC is leading an effort to compare and benchmark these codes. CIG could take the lead to help mature the codes, provide incentives to make them public, and organize interactions within the community of users and developers (e.g., with science workshops, hackatons, training, benchmarks, model formulation, specific SZ4D applications).
I am not sure how relabeling the working groups would help more interactions within the community of developers, but there are already certain synergies, for example, due to overlapping applications in the seismology and short-term crustal dynamics groups. Pylith is already positioned to cover seismic cycle simulations. Yet, I think there is already a critical mass in the seismic cycle community that we can think of it as a separate working group from short-term crustal dynamics. Essentially, this would be a cohesive working group with strong ties to short-term crustal dynamics, long-term tectonics, and seismology.
I have a strong interest in this field, so I’d be willing to commit time to shape it into form.
I envision a broader focus for an “earthquake cycle” working group beyond just earthquake cycle simulations. My idea is to capture all modeling efforts associated with the earthquake cycle, including those focusing on only a portion of the cycle. In addition to simulations of the entire cycle, it would include simulations of strong ground motion or rupture dynamics, postseismic deformation, or interseismic deformation. This would help tie together (strong) ground motion modeling efforts that has been mostly in the realm of the computational seismology working group and the rupture dynamics, postseismic efforts that have been in the realm of the short-term tectonics working group.
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