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.
The SIG will be listed in the program and open to all attendees at the meeting.
Applications are now closed. If you have any questions, please write abstracts@seismosoc.org.
SSA 2026 will offer seven special interest group meetings:
Advancing Seismology and Societal Benefit via Fiber-Optic Sensing: Opportunities and Challenges of Scaling with Telecommunication Cables
Friday, 17 April, Noon-12:45 PM, Ballroom D
This SIG Meeting will address the scientific, technical and institutional challenges of scaling fiber-optic sensing for seismological research and geohazard monitoring— including earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis—using existing terrestrial and submarine telecommunication cables. A panel of experts from academia, government and industry will examine pathways for extending seismological observation from land to the global ocean, where many major hazards originate. While Distributed Acoustic Sensing has advanced rapidly on land, offshore regions remain sparsely instrumented despite dense submarine cable networks. The panel will discuss technical constraints, data governance and security, regulatory access, and opportunities for collaboration between the geophysical community and the submarine cable industry.
Conveners: Valey Kamalov; Mikael Mazur; Qiushi Zhai
AxiSEM/AxiSEM3D Users Group
Friday, 17 April, Noon-12:45 PM, Ballroom A
This SIG will update users and potential users on development and planning for the AxiSEM family of codes, including new functionality and features under development.
Conveners: Benjamin Fernando; Lorraine Hwang; Jonathan Wolf
CRESCENT Mid-Stream: Science and Applications in the Cascadia Region Earthquake Science Center
Friday, 17 April, Noon-12:45 PM, Ballroom G
The Cascadia Region Earthquake Science Center (CRESCENT) is a nexus for research into earthquake hazards and their impacts in the Pacific Northwest. Now in its third year, CRESCENT is engaged in a wide range of activities to increase understanding of hazard via “community models” of faults, geophysical structure, paleoseismic history and geodetic strain, as well as fostering models of dynamic rupture, ground motion and more. Additionally, CRESCENT promotes development of next-generation scientists and engagement of stakeholders at all levels. In this SIG, CRESCENT leaders will provide an update of the center’s activities and accomplishments to date and future plans.
Conveners: Valerie Sahakian; Amanda Thomas; Harold Tobin
Emerging Initiatives and Partnerships in Induced Seismicity Monitoring
Friday, 17 April, Noon-12:45 PM, Ballroom E
Our Special Interest Group invites discussion of ongoing and emerging initiatives that focus on seismic monitoring in or near areas of suspected induced seismicity. Brief updates on instrumentation and monitoring techniques that enable enhanced event detection and location of microseismicity are encouraged. We hope to hear from case studies and collaborations that highlight successful or potential strategies in managing local to regional induced seismicity catalogs and their relevant impacts and usage. Initiatives between the California Geological Survey and the US Geological Survey will be presented. We encourage this platform to identify innovative solutions for monitoring induced seismicity.
Conveners: Ole Kaven; Kayla Kroll; Kevin Kwong
Rapid Integration of Satellite Imagery for Characterizing Earthquake Surface Displacements and Impacts on Infrastructure
Friday, 17 April, Noon-12:45 PM, Ballroom F
Rapidly characterizing surface displacement following an earthquake is important for assessing hazards such as surface rupture, liquefaction, landslides and lateral spread, which pose a threat to critical infrastructure (e.g., pipelines). Often the first full view of surface displacement comes from complementary satellite remote sensing observations. For example, optical imagery, SAR imagery, and GNSS data provide unique perspectives on surface displacement through varied look angles, sensitivities, resolutions, spatial extents and timing. This SIG is intended to bring together those interested in harmonizing the various datasets to better constrain earthquake surface displacements with those interested in using the data to mitigate associated risk.
Conveners: Richard Briggs; Stephen DeLong; Catherine (Cassie) Hanagan; Nadine Reitman, David Wald; Zoe Yin
Spring 2026 North America SeisComP User Group Meeting
Friday, 17 April, 1-1:45 PM, Ballroom C
This Special Interest Group (SIG) session is intended for both new and experienced SeisComP users providing an open and informal forum to discuss SeisComP software architecture, configuration and operational workflows, as well as recent, ongoing and upcoming code developments. Participants are encouraged to share their experiences, challenges and best practices, as well as discuss potential improvements to the software and related tools. The session will emphasize community-driven discussion and knowledge exchange to help shape future North America SeisComP User Group meeting priorities and better support the growing North American user community.
Conveners: Urbi Basu; Alexandros Savvaidis; Jake Walter; Michael West
Understanding Earthquake Dynamic Strain and its Importance to Lifeline Infrastructure
Friday, 17 April, 1-1:45 PM, Ballroom B
A continuing challenge in seismology and earthquake engineering is in constraining the relative role of permanent ground deformation (PGD) due to faulting and ground failure, versus transient ground strains (TGS) due to passing seismic waves on buried lifelines and infrastructure. A 2004 Workshop at U.C. Berkeley recognized the importance of earthquake-induced transient strain for infrastructure engineering, recommending: “development and implementation of a methodology to produce transient peak displacement maps similar to rapid post-event instrumental intensity, PGA, and PGV maps produced by the U.S. Geological Survey” (e.g., ShakeMaps). This SIG will be to elucidate the motivation for, and challenges and opportunities of computing, recording and interpolating TGS for civil engineering purposes. A parallel SSA SIG will cover efforts toward a permanent ground-displacement-based intensity measure, complementing the TGS-based ShakeMap development proposed herein.
Conveners: Norm Abrahamson; Craig Davis; David Wald