[CIG-SHORT] PyLith v2.1.2 released

[Brad Aagaard]

Greetings,

I am pleased to announce the release of PyLith 2.1.2, a finite-element
code designed to solve dynamic elastic problems and quasi-static
viscoelastic problems in tectonic deformation.

This release provides a few new minor features and bugfixes.

You can download the source code and binaries from

     http://geodynamics.org/cig/software/pylith

Detailed installation instructions for the binary packages are in the
User Manual with detailed building instructions for a few platforms in
the INSTALL file bundled with the PyLith Installer utility.


======================================================================
MIGRATING FROM VERSION 2.0 TO 2.1
======================================================================

The points file for OutputSolnPoints must now contain station names as
the first column.

======================================================================
RELEASE NOTES
======================================================================

* Bugfixes for finite-strain formulation.

   + Added output of the Cauchy stresses (cauchy_stress). The second
     Pioloa-Kirchoff stresses are output via the stress field.

   + Material properties and state variables were not retrieved
     properly when updating state variables.

* Bugfixes for setting initial stress and state variables for
   viscoelastic materials. The deviatoric stress state is carried
   forward using the state variables, so the initial deviatoric stress
   should not be considered when computing the stresses.

* Created new examples showing how to use gravity, initial stress, and
   finite-strain in 2-D (examples/2d/gravity).

* Reintroduced check (that had been inadvertently removed in v2.x) for
   ambiguous description of fault surface based on groups of vertices
   defining faces of cells.

* Flush the output of the progress monitor so progress reports are
   updated promptly.

* Updates to the user manual.

   + Added section on the debugging examples covered in recent
     tutorials.

   + Added tables describing the spatial database values for each
     material.

   + Included a more complete discussion of the finite-strain
     formulation.

* PETSc

   + Updated to PETSc v3.7.2 (knepley/pylith branch).

   + Fixed Trilinos/ML configuration and code so that it can be built
     without a Fortran compiler.