Thanks to XSEDE researchers have a new formula for making earthquake simulations more accurate. A project the USGS called the ShakeOut Earthquake Scenario presented the “best current scientific understanding” of a ‘what if’ earthquake with a magnitude of 7.8 (severe) on the southern portion of the San Andreas Fault. It has been well established in earthquake research that nonlinear material response occurs in soft soils near the surface, lessening high-frequency (>1 Hz) shaking that controls damage to low- and mid-rise buildings. This type of nonlinearity is routinely treated in engineering seismology equations, and was provided for in the original ShakeOut Earthquake Scenario—but until the recent research performed with the XSEDE-allocated Kraken supercomputer at the National Institute for Computational Sciences, it was not factored into computer simulations. This work shows nonlinear response in crustal rocks may also reduce the amplitudes of long-period surface waves that pose a hazard to high-rise buildings, meaning the degree of destruction would be less than anticipated. These reductions could be important because the collapse of high-rise structures represents a substantial aspect in the damage and casualty estimates of the ShakeOut Earthquake Scenario. To read further, please visit https://www.nics.tennessee.edu/san-andreas.