The emphasis of our research activities lies in the area of computational seismology, i. e. the development of numerical methods for computing seismic wave propagation and rupture processes. Furthermore, tomographic methods based on these achievements allow us to account for the three-dimensional character of earth models and wave fields. These methods comprise e. g. the finite difference method, pseudospectrals, finite (spectral) elements and finite volumes. Adopting these methods leads to computationally complex programmes which (at the moment) only allow for high performance computers to calculate realistic models. This means that – in addition to standard programme development – a parallelization of our algorithms is necessary which is implemented by using the so-called message passing standard (MPI).
The numerous algorithms which have been developed have applications in almost all areas of seismology. In particular, these are:
Another focus of the seismology group is observing and modelling
rotational motions which are induced by earthquakes. These observations
have lately been made possible by employing ringlaser technology and
have provided seismology with a new observable. For mroe information see the Science movie and article here.
Our current research projects are enhanced by the Seismological Observatory in Fürstenfeldbruck which is part of the worldwide seismological network (GSN). We use a modern seismic network in Bavaria which enables us to measure the seismic activity on our national territory and the neighbouring regions in real time and in the case of perceivable earthquakes inform the population and authorities. This network also records earthquakes worldwide whose data is entered into international data centres.