Earthquakes frequently claim hundreds of lives and cause major damage to cities and infrastructures. More recent large earthquakes (e.g., M 8.8 in Chile, 2010; M 9.1 in Japan, 2011; M7.8 and M7.7 in Turkey, 2023) as well as moderate-size devastating events (M 6.3 in New Zealand, 2010) are forceful reminders
that earthquakes cannot be predicted. However, we can prepare for the expected shaking levels and potential secondary effects (tsunamis, landslides, liquefaction) by investigating the physics of earthquake rupture, by studying seismic wave propagation
in the Earth's crust, and by finding innovative methods to quantify the seismic hazard.
The CES-group at KAUST conducts research to study earthquake source physics and ground-motion generation, with the goal to gain insight into
earthquake properties and to create new tools for seismic-shaking estimation for earthquake-engineering applications. We use seismic data to image the kinematic rupture process during earthquakes, and perform forward simulations to understand the
dynamcis of the rupture process under various initial conditions. We calculate the radiated seismic wavefield emitted by the space-time varying rupture process, and investigate seismic wave scattering in heterogeneous Earth crust. We further simulate long sequences of earthquakes via multi-cycle earthquake rupture simulations to provide earthquake rupture forecasts for seismic hazard assessment. We are also interested
in retrieving accurate information about Earth structure in Saudi Arabia in order to understand better the seismo-tectonics and geo-dynamics of the Arabian Plate, and to improve earthquake locations and thus seismic monitoring capabilities and seismic
hazard calculations in the region.
Research Topics
Earthquake source studies focus on the physical processes within an earthquake's origin (i., the "source") to understand how they start, grow, and terminate. Analyzing seismic waves and other data sets -combined with earthquake rupture simulations- allows to investigate earthquake rupture dynamics and earthquake recurrence, constrain fault properties, and derive earthquake scaling relationships. As such, understanding the "source" better, helps improving seismic hazard assessment.
Over the years, the economy of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) has been primarily dependent on fossil-fuel-based energy sources to meet energy and electricity demand. In this regard, in our research group, we explore and model the potential of low-to-medium geothermal energy extraction and utilization in KSA for heating and cooling, water desalination and power generation. We focus our research on the hydrothermal resources in the high heat-flow Red Sea rift basin.
Seismic waves that we can record with various types of seismic instrumentation contain not only important information about the source that generated these waves but also about the path that these waves traveled from source to site. Studying seismic waves for these path effects allows to learn about Earth's subsurface structure.
We investigate the potentially hazardous effects of earthquakes including the ground motions they cause as well secondary effects like tsunamis and mass wasting events.