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High Performance Computing in Science and Engineering ‘14 pp 613–627Cite as

Thermo-Chemical Mantle Convection Simulations Using Gaia

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Abstract

Thermally and chemically driven buoyancy in planetary mantles cause the slow creep of material, which is ultimately responsible for the heat transport from the deep interior and the large-scale dynamics inside the Earth and other terrestrial planets. With the increasing computational power and the improvement of numerical methods, numerical simulations of planetary interiors have become one the principal tools for understanding the processes active during the thermo-chemical evolution of a terrestrial planet considering constraints posed by geological and geochemical surface observations delivered by various planetary missions. In the present work we present technical aspects and applications to solid-state mantle convection using our code Gaia in Cartesian/cylindrical/spherical geometry. We test the convergence of several numerical solvers that have been implemented in our code, and show the code performance on the HLRS System with up to 10,000 cores. Further we compare our results with published benchmark values.

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Acknowledgements

This research has been supported by the Helmholtz Association through the research alliance “Planetary Evolution and Life”, by the Deutsche Forschungs Gemeinschaft (grant TO 704/1-1), by the Interuniversity Attraction Poles Programme initiated by the Belgian Science Policy Office through the Planet Topers alliance, and by the High Performance Computing Center Stuttgart (HLRS) through the project “Mantle Thermal and Compositional Simulations (MATHECO)”.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. WWU, Institute of Planetology, Muenster and German Aerospace Center, Institute of Planetary Research, Berlin, Germany

    Ana-Catalina Plesa

  2. German Aerospace Center, Institute of Planetary Research, Berlin, Germany

    Christian Hüttig & Doris Breuer

  3. Department of Planetary Geodesy, Technical University Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Nicola Tosi

Authors
  1. Ana-Catalina Plesa
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  2. Christian Hüttig
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  3. Nicola Tosi
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  4. Doris Breuer
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ana-Catalina Plesa .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Zentrum für Informationsdienste und Hochleistungsrechnen (ZIH), Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany

    Wolfgang E. Nagel

  2. Abteilung für Angewandte Mathematik, Universität Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany

    Dietmar H. Kröner

  3. HöchstleistungsrechenzentrumStuttgart (HLRS), Universität Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany

    Michael M. Resch

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Plesa, AC., Hüttig, C., Tosi, N., Breuer, D. (2015). Thermo-Chemical Mantle Convection Simulations Using Gaia. In: Nagel, W., Kröner, D., Resch, M. (eds) High Performance Computing in Science and Engineering ‘14. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10810-0_40

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