Introduction to Geodynamic Modelling

The Helsinki University Geodynamics Group is offering a one-week intensive course May 20–24, 2024 titled “Introduction to geodynamic modelling (GEOM2060)” for master’s and doctoral students.

Interactions of erosion and deformation in a geodynamic model.

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
  • Instructors
  • Course website
  • Course completion methods
  • Suggested background studies
• Learning goals
• Grading
  • General grading breakdown

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
• Basic elements of Python
  • Sources
  • About this document
  • Getting started
  • Variables, math and functions
  • Lists and indices
• Functions
  • Sources
  • What is a function?
  • Anatomy of a function
  • Calling functions
• Introduction to NumPy
  • Introducing NumPy
  • Useful functions
• for loops
  • Sources
  • Basics of for loops
• Conditional statements
  • Sources
  • Basics of conditional statements

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 - Skipped for 2022
• 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
  • What to do?
• Introduction to DOUAR

Day 5

• Plasticity in DOUAR
  • Viscosity of a plastic element
• Project overview
  • Course project
  • The paper
  • Due date and credit points
  • Any questions?

Exercises

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

Technical instructions

• Using the geo-hpcc cluster
  • Suggested software
  • User accounts
  • Connecting from Windows
  • Connecting from Mac/Linux
  • Navigating the filesystem
  • Running DOUAR models
  • Postprocessing job output

Resources

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