ARCHIVED: Petascale computing on the TeraGrid: High-Resolution Mantle Convection Simulation on Petascale Computers

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Note: The project described in this document is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Office of Cyberinfrastructure (OCI) to use TeraGrid's petascale environments for highly advanced scientific analysis and simulations that advance the frontiers of scientific and engineering research. For more, see ARCHIVED: Petascale computing on the TeraGrid.

This project capitalizes on petascale computing systems to carry out the high resolution mantle convection simulations that resolve thermal boundary layers and faulted plate boundaries, which will enable the first inverse solutions that can incorporate historical plate motions. These simulations will lead to breakthroughs in understanding the dynamics of the solid Earth.

Mantle convection is the principal control on the thermal and geological evolution of the Earth. It is central to our understanding of the origin and evolution of tectonic deformation, the evolution of the thermal and compositional states of the mantle, and ultimately the evolution of the Earth as a whole. Despite its central importance to our understanding of the dynamics of the solid Earth, simulation of global mantle convection at realistic Rayleigh numbers down to the scale of faulted plate boundaries is currently intractable, due to the wide range of time and length scales involved.

For more, see award abstracts #0749334 and #0749045, and #0748898 on the NSF web site.