Special Interest Group (SIG)
SSA offers registered attendees an opportunity to organize forty-five minute Special Interest Group (SIG) sessions, which provide an opportunity to share information on new initiatives or opportunities of common interest to meeting attendees. SIGs are required to include open discussion.
SIGs may not be used for commercial purposes, cannot be used to extend a session and are not available to be organized by any commercial enterprise.
Any registered participant may organize a SIG, which is subject to approval by the co-chairs. All SIGs will take place on-site and no hybrid option will be provided. No food or drink will be provided by SSA. Standard presentation technology will be available for use.
SSA 2025 will offer one special interest group meeting:
Development and Implications of the International Macroseismic Scale
Tuesday, 15 April, 1-1:45 PM, Holiday Ballroom 1
This SIG will explore the recent development of the new International Macroseismic Scale (IMS). As a modern scale, the IMS, a global expansion of the European Macroseismic Scale of 1998 (EMS-98), has several advantages over the traditional Modified Mercalli Intensity (MMI) scale used in the U.S. Most significantly, the IMS has a consistent approach to structural vulnerabilities, damage grades and quantitative intensity assignments, essential for characterizing damaging intensity levels. We aim for group discussion of issues such as:
- The relationship with internet intensities
- Backward compatibility with MMI
- Approaches for assigning higher intensities
- IMS use in ground motion modeling (GMICE/GMMs)
Conveners: Ayse Hortacsu, Applied Technology Council; Keith Porter, Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction; Vince Quitoriano, U.S. Geological Survey; Andrea Rovida, National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology
This SIG will be listed in the program and open to all attendees at the meeting.
If you have any questions, please write abstracts@seismosoc.org.