The Earthquake‐Source Inversion Validation (SIV) Project

Finite-fault earthquake source inversions infer the (time-dependent) on the rupture surface from geophysical . The resulting earthquake source models document the of the rupture process. However, multiple source for the same earthquake, obtained by different research , often exhibit remarkable dissimilarities. To address the in earthquake-source inversion methods and to strengths and weaknesses of the various approaches , the Source Inversion Validation (SIV) project conducts a of forward-modeling exercises and inversion benchmarks. In article, we describe the SIV strategy, the initial benchmarks, current SIV results. Furthermore, we apply statistical tools quantitative waveform comparison and for investigating -model (dis)similarities that enable us to rank the solutions, to identify particularly promising source inversion approaches. SIV exercises (with related data and descriptions) statistical comparison tools are available via an online collaboration , and we encourage source modelers to use SIV benchmarks for developing and testing new methods. envision that the SIV efforts will lead to new developments tackling the earthquake-source imaging problem.