Report on the 7th ACES International Workshop

The “Integrated Predictive Simulation System for Earthquake and Tsunami Disaster” research project team (represented by Project Professor Mitsuhiro Matsuura, Prediction and Knowledge Discovery Research Center, The Institute of Statistical Mathematics) of the CREST research area “High Performance Computing for Multi-scale and Multi-physics Phenomena” held the 7th ACES International Workshop over the 6 days spanning October 3-8, 2010, in the city of Otaru, Hokkaido.

ACES (APEC Cooperation for Earthquake Simulation), established in 1998 as an APEC cooperative association related to earthquake simulation research, had previously held 6 international workshops, among other activities, and has taken a global leadership role in cutting edge research in the field. The purpose of this most recent workshop was to contribute to international development in research on integrated simulations for understanding various phenomena related to earthquake generation through the exchange of information and theory as well as the presentation of the latest research results in large scale simulations of earthquakes and tsunami as well as the computer and information science on which those simulations are based.

46 researchers from Japan and 45 researchers from 12 different foreign countries (including 11 invited speakers) participated in the workshop, which consisted of 71 oral and 28 poster presentations of research results, including those given by the CREST research team. As for the structure of the workshop, the first day consisted of registration and icebreaking sessions, followed by scientific sessions from the 2nd through the 5th days, with an inspection tour in the field on the 6th day. In the scientific sessions, keynote speeches by Osamu Ichimaru of JST, ACES Executive Director John Rundle, and CREST Project Leader Mitsuhiro Matsuura were followed by one presentation after another of globally leading research results concerning macroscopic simulations of earthquake generation cycles, macroscopic simulations of dynamic fracture and seismic wave propagation, computational environments and algorithms, analysis and assimilation of observation data, microscopic simulations and scaling, and applications for simulation models. The CREST team made a total of 15 presentations sharing research results with the world, not including microscopic simulations and scaling, which were all well received. We think that this workshop yielded extremely important results in setting the future course for earthquake and tsunami simulation research around the world, as well as in further strengthening international ties among the countries of the Asia-Pacific region.

In closing, we would like to express our deep gratitude for sponsorship by the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention as well as for the support of the Japan Geosciences Union, the Seismological Society of Japan, and The Institute of Statistical Mathematics.