[CIG-ALL] Workshop on Community Finite Element Models for Fault Systems and Tectonic Studies

[cig-all at geodynamics.org]

Workshop on Community Finite Element Models for Fault Systems
and Tectonic Studies

July 11-14, 2005

Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico

ACTIONS:

1) If you plan to attend the Workshop on Community Finite Element Models
for Fault Systems and Tectonic Studies (info below) please go to the web 
site:
http://www.scec.org/workshops/CFEM and register.

2) If you plan to attend and you are not a U.S. citizen we need to
submit paperwork for your visit to Los Alamos Nat'l Lab. If you are a
citizen of a 'Sensitive Country' we need to start the paperwork by
April 15. For non-U.S. citizens please note your country of
citizenship in the comments box. For citizens of non-sensitive
countries, we need to start the paperwork by May 20. Register on the
web site above and also contact Carl Gable (gable at lanl.gov) to get
that paperwork started.

WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION:

The 4th annual "Workshop on Community Finite Element Models for Fault
Systems and Tectonic Studies" will take place from July 11 through 14 at
Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). Formal meetings will go
through late noon on July 14, with facilities available after that
time for informal collaborations. This workshop will serve as a venue
to discuss progress in numerical modeling of lithospheric deformation,
benchmarking existing codes, and defining the challenges that need to
be met for future software development. This workshop is open to all
interested, especially members of the SCEC, EarthScope, and NASA
modeling communities. Partial financial support is already being
provided by or sought from SCEC, LANL, NSF CIG, and NASA.

This workshop will have a "hands-on" emphasis. The main goal of the
workshop will be to leave the workshop knowing how to do more with
basic tools than before the workshop. This will be done by using
Southern California and Benchmarks as examples for using the next
generation of crustal deformation modeling tools. There will continue
to be a focus on the meshing problem, including learning how to use
LAGriT and CUBIT. Introductions and tutorials for GeoFest and PyLith
(aka. Lithomop) will take place, as well as discussions of other codes
being used for modeling lithospheric deformation. We will address
what it takes to get these up and running, what can they do, and how
can they be modified. Running on clusters or the GRID is crucial, and
we will move in that direction.

Another priority is the comparison of results for a small number of
benchmark problems to verify codes and to their strengths and
weaknesses. For the FEM models, the effects of irregular computational
meshes are being explored. The models will eventually be extended to
include postseismic relaxation for viscoelastic and rate-state
friction. The ability to accurately model body forces will be
investigated by considering test problems with explicit
topography. Primary goals of this benchmarking exercise are to assess
accuracy/basis function/parallelism issues, and to separately assess
commercial/SCEC-written options for both mesh generation and solver.
This exercise will be designed to learn what mesh generation
techniques are available, as well as their relative strengths and
weaknesses.

While the glue holding the workshop will continue to be technical in
nature, we hope to move in the direction of more scientific
interaction than has been possible before. Suggestions about agenda
or workshop format should be sent to the organizers (gable at lanl.gov,
bhhager at mit.edu,simons at caltech.edu)