Computational Research

Scientific research in the 21st century is often underpinned by computational tools. From spreadsheets to distributed cloud computing, advances in computational methods can open entirely new fields of research. Our department hosts both physical (hardware) and digital (software) infrastructure related to computational research, including numerical modelling of the climate, ocean circulation and biogeochemistry, volcano and earthquake seismology, rock magnetism, sedimentary processes, applied geophysics, gravimetry, and geomagnetism. Our academic staff also work on a variety of open-source scientific software projects. 

Contact 

For questions and information about our facilities and working with us, please contact: 

• Peter Burgess 
• Silvio De Angelis  
• Greig Paterson 
• Alessandro Tagliabue 
• Leonardo Uieda
• John Wheeler

Instruments and Capabilities 

Open-source software developed by our staff: 

• HystLab: MATLAB based software for advanced processing and analysis of magnetic hysteresis data. 
• AnalySize: MATLAB software for numerical unmixing of sedimentary grain size distribution data. 
• paleointensity.org: An online application to analyse paleointensity data produced by different methods and experiments. 
• MERRILL: MERRILL is an open-source 3D micromagnetics software package used to model complex inhomogeous domain structures in magnetic materials. 
• PyGMT: A Python library for processing geospatial and geophysical data and making publication quality maps and figures. It provides a Pythonic interface for the Generic Mapping Tools (GMT), one of the most widely used open-source software projects in the Earth, Ocean, Climate, and Planetary Sciences.
• Fatiando a Terra: An open toolbox for the Geophysics, Fatiando provides Python libraries for data processing, modelling, and inversion across the Geosciences.
• Tesseroids: A collection of command-line programs for calculating the gravitational attraction of spherical prisms (tesseroids). Tesseroids is used to model gravitational fields measured from satellites and continental-scale surveys.
• CarboCAT: A numerical stratigraphic forward model of carbonate platform evolution, written in Matlab, with GUI front-end, more details on formulation and use here and here
• Lobyte3D: A numerical stratigraphic forward model of deep-water mass-flow strata, especially formation of allo- and autogenic stacking patterns, details on formulation and uses here
• StrataWorkbench: A GUI-fronted tool to analyse stratigraphic successions for the presence of order, all details are here, here and here
• Stratal Control Space Analysis: A method to quantify how likely a sequence stratigraphic interpretation is based on analysis of shoreline trajectories and other similar interpretations, full details of the theory and method here 
• Crystalscape - software for analysing Electron Backscatter Diffraction data that characterises crystal orientations. The software plots standard displays such as pole figures, analyses misorientations between minerals and deduces dislocation information from lattice curvature. Contact John Wheeler for details
• DiffRad - software for analysing spatially resolved Ar isotope data for understanding K-Ar ages (Diffarg) and unpublished generalised version for investigating U-Pb ages etc. Contact John Wheeler for details.
• DiffForm - software for numerical experiments on grain-scale microstructure evolution during diffusion creep and pressure solution. Contact John Wheeler for details.
• FlowMetDef - Reactive fluid flow in a deforming medium - software for explaining and extrapolating results of dehydration reaction experiments. Contact John Wheeler for details.