Abstract:
SYNSEIS - SYNthetic SEISmogram generation tool is designed to help
seismologists as well as any other researchers calculate synthetic 3D regional
seismic waveforms using a well-tested, finite difference code, E3D, developed
by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. SYNSEIS is built as a grid
application and accesses distributed data centers and large computational
clusters minimizing the
... requirements needed to conduct such advance
calculations. With SYNSEIS users only need to have access to the Internet and a
browser. The entire system is web-based and is accessible from the GEONgrid
portal web page.
It is built using a service-based architecture and each sub-component in the
system is also exposed as a web service, allowing multiple use scenarios for
each component if other researchers choose to re-use some of the resources. It
provides an interactive user interface with mapping tools and
event/station/waveform extraction tools that allow users to seamlessly access
IRIS Data Management Center's archives. Though the system currently accesses
one 3D crustal model across the US, when more models become available they will
be incorporated into the system. Users are able to interactively set their
study region, access seismic event and station locations, extract waveforms on
the fly for any selected event-station pair, and compute a synthetic seismogram
using built in tools. As a compute engine, SYNSEIS uses national-scale TeraGrid
supercomputer centers, eliminating all complexities and difficulties related to
account management, cpu allocation, and software installation. The system is
designed to be used in day-to-day activities of researchers, especially those
of EarthScope scientists who will be accessing data from hundreds of stations
everyday and need to process the data in a timely fashion. 
