A Web - Service - Based Universal Approach to Heterogeneous

In the past decade, the availability of spacederived crustal deformation data has transformed the solid Earth geophysics field. Global Positioning System (GPS) networks deployed globally provide precise timedependent information on how the Earth’s crust responds to earthquakes and plate tectonic processes. Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) data reveal spatially dense information on how the Earth’s crust deforms and how faults interact with each other. Deformation of the Earth’s crust and the interaction between earthquake faults is a complex 3D process. Understanding these processes requires sophisticated models and the use of high-performance computers. Our simulation system, QuakeSim (http://quakesim.jpl.nasa.gov), aims to help members of the seismological, crustal deformation, and tectonic communities develop an understanding of active tectonic and earthquake processes. The project’s major science goal is to create a virtual laboratory to probe earthquake behavior. Its computational goal is to produce a functional system that fully models earthquake-related data.1 QuakeSim is a Web browser-based problemsolving environment that provides a set of links between newly available resources from NASA Earth-observing systems, high-performance simulations, automated data mining, and more traditional tools. It’s the first Web services-based, interoperable environment for creating large-scale forward models of earthquake processes.2 A Web services-based portal provides global access to geologic reference models of faults and fault data, simple analysis tools, new parallel forward models, and visualization support. Effective use of large data sets in the solid Earth sciences will soon require cyberinfrastructure tools (www.cise.nsf.gov/sci/reports/toc.cfm). QuakeTables, a database system for handling both real and simulated data, provides input for earthquake simulation tools using fault data. Later, it will include LISA B. GRANT AND MIRYHA M. GOULD