Underworld

a long term geodynamics simulation platform

Underworld Groundwater Model
- Numerical Method

Governing Equations

In the incompressible limit, mass conservation requires:

while momentum conservation leads to:

where here is the permeability tensor which will depend on the porous medium properties.

About the Underworld Software Suite

Here we provide a very brief introduction to the Underworld software suite used to run the 3D subduction model in this tutorial.

Underworld is a parallelized particle-in-cell finite element code. It uses a layered approach to provide the user with a flexible computational geodynamics modelling software. Underworld is built on the PICellerator, StGDomain, StGFEM and StGermain packages, and also comes packaged with gLucifer visualisation software (Figure 2). For details on the numerical implementation and how these parts fit together see:

• Moresi, L., Quenette, S., Lemiale, V., Meriaux, C., Appelbe, B., and Mühlhaus, H.B., 2007. Computational approaches to studying non-linear dynamics of the crust and mantle, Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors, 163 (1-4), 69-82, doi: 10.1016/j.pepi.2007.06.009

Figure 2: Diagram of Underworld Program Structure (Figure 1.1, Humble,
K. (Ed.), 2010, Underworld User Manual).

-- Wendy Mason - 21 December 2010
-- John Mansour - 30 June 2010