Introduction to Geodynamic Modelling

Interactions of erosion and deformation in a geodynamic model.

The Helsinki University Geodynamics Group is offering a one-week intensive course May 18-22, 2026 titled “Introduction to geodynamic modelling” for master’s and doctoral students.

Note

The course is divided into two parts with separate course codes for registration:

• GEOM2060 - Introduction to Geodynamic Modelling (3 cp)

• GEOM2061 - Introduction to Geodynamic Modelling project (2 cp)

Course goals

• Understand the fundamental physical equations solved in numerical geodynamic models, how they work, and how they affect numerical experiments

• Learn how to convert the main equations used to model lithospheric deformation into simple programs

• Develop a background understanding of geodynamics that allows you to properly understand the behavior of geodynamic numerical models

Contents

Course information

• General info
  • Course meetings
  • Instructor
  • Course website
  • Course completion methods
  • Suggested background studies
• Course environment
  • Cloud computing environment
  • Using your own computer
• Learning goals
• Grading
  • General grading breakdown
• Use of AI tools
  • Guidelines for AI-LLM use in the IntroGM course
  • An introduction to AI-LLMs

Day 1

• Course overview
  • Let’s get to know one another
  • Practical matters
  • Computer stuff and course website
  • Course goals and learning objectives
  • Schedule
  • Any questions?
• Processes and concepts
• Solving equations
  • Goals of this lesson
  • Finding a solution
  • A simpler example
  • A simpler example?
  • OK, now what?
  • Boundary conditions
  • Other considerations
  • Initial conditions
  • What about other scenarios?
  • The need for numerical integration
  • Summary
  • References
• Basic elements of Python
  • Sources
  • About this document
  • Getting started
  • Lesson materials
  • Student notebooks
  • Exercise(s)
• Functions
  • Lesson materials
  • Student notebooks
  • Exercise(s)
• Introduction to NumPy
  • Introducing NumPy
  • Useful functions
  • Exercise(s)
• for loops
  • Lesson materials
  • Student notebooks
  • Exercise(s)
• Conditional statements
  • Lesson materials
  • Student notebooks
  • Exercise(s)

Day 2

• Introduction to finite differences
  • Basic concept
  • Taylor series approach and accuracy
  • Approximating derivatives
  • Calculating the error
  • Applying finite differences to a physical problem
• Finite differences for the heat equation
  • Finite-difference formulation
  • Boundary and initial conditions
  • Cooling of an intrusion
• Stability of the heat equation FD approximation
  • Calcuation of the stability condtions
• Heat advection and diffusion
  • General equation

Day 3

• Testing your code and benchmarking
  • Sources of error (revisited)
  • Calculating error
  • How do you know when your solution is “correct”?
  • Stability for advection problems
• FD for the Stokes equation
  • Theory
  • Channel flow
• Solution strategy for channel flow
  • Approach
  • Calculating strain rates
  • Velocity boundary conditions

Day 4

• Cluster computing
  • Performance of geodynamic models
  • Performance of parallel programs
• Putting it all together
  • Processes to consider
  • Interactions between processes/materials
  • General structure of a thermomechanical code
• Marker-in-cell technique
• Numerical diffusion
  • Getting started
  • Setting up the problem
  • Calculating the solution and plotting the results
  • Exercise - Playing with numerical diffusion
• A partial introduction to ASPECT
  • Overview
  • Physics of ASPECT
  • Material models and rheologies
  • Numerical methods
  • Other aspects of ASPECT
  • References

Day 5

• Project course overview
  • What is the idea?
  • What do you need to do?
  • The paper
  • Due date and credit points
  • Any questions?

Exercises

• Exercise notebooks in GitHub Classroom
  • Day 1 notebooks
  • Day 2 exercises
  • Day 3 exercises
  • Day 4 notebooks

Technical instructions

• Running ASPECT models in Noppe
  • Running ASPECT
  • Creating a downloadable output file
  • Viewing the output in ParaView

Resources

• Geodynamics resources
  • Articles
  • Web resources
• Python resources
  • Geo-Python resources
  • IntroGM Python environment files
  • Other useful sites
• Software
  • Windows
  • Mac/Linux
• License and terms of usage
  • Instructional materials
  • Code snippets / software