Validation via Laboratory Experiments

While the collection of significant new laboratory data is outside the scope of the GEM project, data from laboratory experiments are needed to validate the GEM simulations. Validation can take many forms, but there would seem to be two primary functions: 1) The use of experimental data in verifying numerical techniques and the physics that are included (excluded) in models. 2) The use of numerical models in connection with a concurrent active program of lab experiments to further identify the physical mechanisms that operate in laboratory experiments and earthquake fault zones. However, it must be recalled that laboratory experiments provide information only about a strongly limited set of space-time scales on given materials and conditions. How these results scale up or apply to field situations is unknown.