<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; ">Greetings,<BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">I am pleased to announce the beta version 0.8.2 release of PyLith, a finite element code designed to solve quasi-static viscoelastic problems in lithospheric dynamics. The latest release offers the use of traction boundary conditions, load histories for split nodes, a number of new</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">material models, including power-law Maxwell and generalized Maxwell (3 Maxwell models in parallel), the use of .cfg files for setting simulation parameters, much simpler top-level code structure, and several bug fixes.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">You can download the source code from</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "> <A href="http://geodynamics.org/cig/software/packages/short/pylith"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#0000ED">http://geodynamics.org/cig/software/packages/short/pylith</FONT></A></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Installation instructions are in the bundled README and INSTALL files.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Release Notes:</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">1. The code now makes use of time histories for split node fault displacements, allowing users to slip different faults (or sections of a fault) according to a given history. The format of split node input files has not changed, since time histories were still present in the input files (they were just ignored).</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">2. Traction boundary conditions were broken in the previous version of PyLith, and they are now functioning for both tetrahedral (triangular faces) and hexahedral (quadrilateral faces) elements.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">3. There are now 6 different material models in PyLith:</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">IsotropicLinearElastic: Standard elastic model that was available previously</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">IsotropicLinearMaxwellViscoelastic: New formulation for the Maxwell viscoelastic model</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">IsotropicLinearGenMaxwellViscoelastic: New material model consisting of a spring in parallel with 3 linear Maxwell models</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">IsotropicPowerLawMaxwellViscoelastic: New power-law Maxwell model using the Effective Stress Function approach</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">IsotropicLinearMaxwellViscoelasticESF: Previous formulation of the linear Maxwell model using the Effective Stress Function approach</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">IsotropicPowerLawMaxwellViscoelasticZT: New formulation for the power-law Maxwell model using a formulation based on that of Zienkiewicz & Taylor</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">4. The ability to use .cfg files means that this is now the preferred method for setting parameters in PyLith, rather than the command line or using .pml files. These files have a very simple format, and setting up simulations should now be much simpler.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">5. The top-level code structure has been much simplified. The primary benefit of this to users (in addition to more efficient code), is that there are no longer separate pylith3d.scanner options. Instead, there are now just pylith3d options. Also, PETSc options may now be set as 'petsc.xxx=yyy' in a .cfg file.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">While this release should be useful to many researchers, we are presently focusing our efforts on PyLith 1.0, which will be the first version of the code to include both quasi-static and dynamic capabilities. We will make an announcement on this list when the initial version of PyLith 1.0 is released.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><BR><DIV> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Charles A. Williams</FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Dept. of Earth & Environmental Sciences</FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Science Center, 2C01B</FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute</FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Troy, NY<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>12180</FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Phone:<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"><SPAN class="Apple-converted-tab"> </SPAN></SPAN>(518) 276-3369</FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">FAX:<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"><SPAN class="Apple-converted-tab"> </SPAN></SPAN>(518) 276-2012</FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">e-mail:<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"><SPAN class="Apple-converted-tab"> </SPAN></SPAN><A href="mailto:willic3@rpi.edu">willic3@rpi.edu</A></FONT></P> <BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"> </DIV><BR></BODY></HTML>