Highlight articles

This page features highlight articles from EGU's open access journals Geoscientific Model Development and Solid Earth. These articles of particular interest are selected by journal editors.

61 items found

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Terrainbento 1.0: a Python package for multi-model analysis in long-term drainage basin evolution

Terrainbento 1.0 is a Python package for modeling the evolution of the surface of the Earth over geologic time (e.g., thousands to millions of years). Despite many decades of effort by the geomorphology community, there is no one established governing equation for the evolution of topography. Terrainbento 1.0 thus provides 28 alternative models that support hypothesis testing and multi-model analysis in landscape evolution.

Devito (v3.1.0): an embedded domain-specific language for finite differences and geophysical exploration

This paper presents Devito, a Python-based software. The aim of this software is to provide a high-level simple interface to users for the description and discretization of the mathematical definition of the physics. This research initially started as an attempt to improve research time, portability, and performance in exploration geophysics. We present the latest version of the software that is already making an impact in academics and industry.

The Open Global Glacier Model (OGGM) v1.1

Mountain glaciers are one of the few remaining subsystems of the global climate system for which no globally applicable community-driven model exists. Here we present the Open Global Glacier Model (OGGM; www.oggm.org), developed to provide a modular and open-source numerical model framework for simulating past and future change of any glacier in the world.

Power spectra of random heterogeneities in the solid earth

Solid Earth
DOI 10.5194/se-10-275-2019
5 February 2019

Recent seismological observations clarified that the velocity structure of the crust and upper mantle is randomly heterogeneous. I compile reported power spectral density functions of random velocity fluctuations based on various types of measurements. Their spectral envelope is approximated by the third power of wavenumber. It is interesting to study what kinds of geophysical processes created such a power-law spectral envelope at different scales and in different geological environments.

A multi-technology analysis of the 2017 North Korean nuclear test

Solid Earth
DOI 10.5194/se-10-59-2019
15 January 2019

On 3 September 2017 official channels of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea announced the successful test of a nuclear device. This study provides a multi-technology analysis of the 2017 North Korean event and its aftermath using a wide array of geophysical methods (seismology, infrasound, remote sensing, radionuclide monitoring, and atmospheric transport modeling). Our results clearly indicate that the September 2017 North Korean event was in fact a nuclear test.

ESM-SnowMIP: assessing snow models and quantifying snow-related climate feedbacks

This paper provides an overview of a coordinated international experiment to determine the strengths and weaknesses in how climate models treat snow. The models will be assessed at point locations using high-quality reference measurements and globally using satellite-derived datasets. How well climate models simulate snow-related processes is important because changing snow cover is an important part of the global climate system and provides an important freshwater resource for human use.

The influence of upper-plate advance and erosion on overriding plate deformation in orogen syntaxes

Solid Earth
DOI 10.5194/se-9-1207-2018
5 November 2018

In this modeling study, we investigate rock uplift at plate corners (syntaxes). These are characterized by a unique bent geometry at subduction zones and exhibit some of the world’s highest rock uplift rates. We find that the style of deformation changes above the plate’s bent section and that active subduction is necessary to generate an isolated region of rapid uplift. Strong erosion there localizes uplift on even smaller scales, suggesting both tectonic and surface processes are important.

Oblique rifting: the rule, not the exception

Solid Earth
DOI 10.5194/se-9-1187-2018
26 October 2018

Fragmentation of continents often involves obliquely rifting segments that feature a complex three-dimensional structural evolution. Here we show that more than ~ 70 % of Earth’s rifted margins exceeded an obliquity of 20° demonstrating that oblique rifting should be considered the rule, not the exception. This highlights the importance of three-dimensional approaches in modelling, surveying, and interpretation of those rift segments where oblique rifting is the dominant mode of deformation.

GHOST: Geoscientific Hollow Sphere Tessellation

Solid Earth
DOI 10.5194/se-9-1169-2018
10 October 2018

I present the GHOST (Geoscientific Hollow Sphere Tessellation) software which allows for the fast generation of computational meshes in hollow sphere geometries counting up to a hundred million cells. Each mesh is composed of concentric spherical shells made of quadrilaterals or triangles. I focus here on three commonly used meshes used in the geodynamics/geophysics community and further benchmark the gravity and gravitational potential procedures in the simple case of a constant density.

sympl (v. 0.4.0) and climt (v. 0.15.3) – towards a flexible framework for building model hierarchies in Python

In the same way that the fruit fly or the yeast cell serve as model systems in biology, climate scientists use a range of computer models to gain a fundamental understanding of our climate system. These models range from extremely simple models that can run on your phone to those that require supercomputers. Sympl and climt are packages that make it easy for climate scientists to build a hierarchy of such models using Python, which facilitates easy to read and self-documenting models.

GMPV Geochemistry, Mineralogy, Petrology & Volcanology Highlight articles