The nations of Europe are distributed around some of the most complex and dynamic geological systems on the planet and understanding these is essential to the security of livelihoods and economic power of Europeans. Many of the solutions to the grand challenges in the geosciences have been led by European scientists – the understanding of stratigraphy (the timing and distribution of layers of sediment on Earth) and the discovery of the concept of plate tectonics being among the most significant. Our ability to monitor the Earth is rapidly evolving through development of new sensor technology, both on- and below-ground and from outer space; we are able to deliver this information with increasing rapidity, integrate it, provide solutions to geological understanding and furnish essential information for decision makers. Earth science monitoring systems are distributed across Europe and the globe and measure the physico-chemical characteristics of the planet under different geological regimes. EPOS will bring together 24 European nations and combine national Earth science facilities, the associated data and models together with the scientific expertise into one integrated delivery system for the solid Earth. This infrastructure will allow the Earth sciences to achieve a step change in our understanding of the planet; it will enable us to prepare for geo-hazards and to responsibly manage the subsurface for infrastructure development, waste storage and the use of Earth’s resources. With a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) to be located in Rome (Italy), EPOS will provide an opportunity for Europe to maintain world-leading European Earth sciences and will represent a model for pan-European federated infrastructure.

The scientific ambition of ChEESE-2P is to prepare 11 community flagship codes to address 12 domain-specific Exascale Computational Challenges (ECC), enlarging the areas covered during the first implementation phase (computational seismology, magnetohydrodynamics, physical volcanology, and tsunamis) with two additional disciplines (geodynamics and modeling of glacier hazards). Codes will be optimized in terms of performance on different types of accelerators, scalability, deployment, containerization, and portability across current pre-exascale systems and hardware architectures emerging from the EuroHPC Pilots by co-designing with mini-apps. Optimization will also include heterogeneous single-node and multi-node performance, as well as continuous efficiency monitoring using the Performance Optimisation and Productivity (POP) metrics. Emphasis will be given on the uptake by science, public administration and industry, including training and capacity building in cooperation with National Competence Centers (NCCs). Codes and workflows will combine to farm a new generation of 9 Pilot Demonstrators (PDs) underpinned by concepts like multi-scale, multi-source, and multi-physics. The PDs will materialise in 15 Simulation Cases (SCs) representing capability and capacity use cases of particular relevance in terms of science, social relevance, or urgency (the capability SCs include 4 potential Scientific Grand Challenges, i.e. cases that can require an extreme-scale access mode). The SCs will produce relevant EOSC-enabled datasets and enable services on aspects of geohazards like urgent computing, early warning forecast, hazard assessment, or fostering an emergency access mode in EuroHPC tier-0/tier-1 systems for geohazardous events (earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanoes), including access policy recommendations. Finally, ChEESE-2P will liaise, align, and synergize with other domain-specific European projects and longer-term mission-like initiatives like Destination Earth.

A small eruption in Iceland in 2010 had a big impact on the economy, airlines, and people in Europe and worldwide. Forecasting eruptions and mitigating their effects requires better understanding of the precursory signals and their detection amongst other signals. One of the key geophysical signals is volcanic tremor which is observed before and during eruptions but is only phenomenologically interpreted. The project TREMOR, based at the Icelandic Meteorological Office (IMO) and the University of Cambridge will exploit their extensive, multidisciplinary databases including recordings of recent eruptions and floods. It will overcome present shortcomings, such as badly constrained tremor locations through use of new location techniques, dense seismic networks and small source-receiver distances. These improvements are made possible by the FUTUREVOLC project (FP7, 2012-2016) which expanded existing networks in Iceland shortly before the Bardarbunga 2014/15 eruption. Preliminary results during the researchers PhD suggest that both pre-eruptive and eruptive tremor exist during this eruption and have different characteristics. The TREMOR project will continue from this point with the objectives to (i) systematically search for pre-eruptive tremor, (ii) characterise it with respect to eruptive tremor and other tremor sources such as floods, glaciers and hydrothermal boiling, (iii) find factors that affect its characteristics and (iv) understand the source mechanism better. If TREMOR is successful, pre-eruptive tremor can be introduced as an eruption precursor, not only with direct application at IMO, but potentially worldwide. This thorough study will form the basis of future research, as it will be disseminated through conference presentations, publication in peer-reviewed journals and communication to the public. It will further train and integrate the researcher into two effective, experienced, multidisciplinary research groups to strengthen professional maturity.

The European Plate Observing System (EPOS) is the sole distributed pan-European Research Infrastructure (RI) for solid Earth Science, enabling open access to high-quality, multidisciplinary data, products, and services. Based on the achievements of the previous EU projects on the design, implementation, and pre-operation of the EPOS RI, the EPOS ON project will support the consolidation of the infrastructure and pave the way for its further evolution. The project will enable the EPOS RI to meet long-term sustainability conditions for operation, relying on its ability to create value for the scientific and IT communities and to produce new insights for contributing to societal challenges related to risk management and environmental impact reduction. EPOS ON aims to enhance the EPOS services portfolio and develop new institutional and scientific collaborations by fulfilling the needs of different communities and by encouraging the establishment of new EPOS Thematic Core Services. This will provide the necessary impulse to expand access to data and services to a wider pool of users, in particular early career researchers, at both the European and global scale. User engagement will also increase thanks to the new generation of processing and workflow services developed during the project. EPOS ON is also devoted to shortening the gap between science and the private sector by enabling knowledge transfer and technological innovation. As a result, EPOS ON will reinforce the EPOS capability to unite scientific communities and countries, reducing fragmentation in the European Research Area. EPOS ON offers a timely opportunity for the optimization and evolution of the EPOS RI and reflects the strong commitment of its community to boosting EPOS impact.