[CIG-CS] ASPECT 1.2 released

[Timo Heister]

We are pleased to announce the release of ASPECT 1.2. ASPECT is the Advanced
Solver for Problems in Earth's ConvecTion. It uses modern numerical methods such
as adaptive mesh refinement, multigrid, and a modular software design to
provide a fast, flexible and extensible mantle convection solver. ASPECT is
available from

                   http://aspect.dealii.org/

This release includes the following changes:
- methods to have truly concentric shells without distorted cells
- linear solver improvements which give up to 2x speedup in some cases
- boundary names like "top" instead of numbers are now supported in input files
- new example: free surface computation with a crust as a stagnant lid
- new benchmarks: Davies et al. and Burstedde et al.
- new initial condition: S40RTS perturbation based on shear wave data
- fixes to minimum/maximum refinement plugins
- better error messages when linear solvers fail
- many other fixes and small improvements (direct solver, file output,
  checkpointing, etc.)

A complete list of changes can be found at
  http://aspect.dealii.org/doc/doxygen/changes_between_1_81_and_1_82.html

Wolfgang Bangerth, Timo Heister, and many other contributors.


-- 
Timo Heister
http://www.math.clemson.edu/~heister/