Paper No. 1
Presentation Time: 9:00 AM-6:00 PM
TELLUS: A NEW HPC MODEL BASED ON PARTICLE-in-CELL TECHNIQUE TO INVESTIGATE STRATIGRAPHY EVOLUTION
We present an implementation of surface processes modelling based on the particle-in-cell technique. A fully parallel implementation has been designed for enabling simulation of surface erosion and mass transport at various scales (from hundreds of metres to orogenic scale) over unstructured grid on HPC.
The model, called Tellus, is primarily based on shallow-water equations solved within a Lagrangian formulation. This method has the advantage of allowing the flow to follow reliefs in a very natural way. Flow velocity and sediment load are represented at points that move with the fluid. Based on several assumptions on flow motion as well as erosion-deposition rules, Tellus is able to simulate a variety of gravity flows such as rivers, debris flows and turbidity currents. In addition, vertical displacement fields, sea level variations and rainfall pattern evolution can be imposed in order to simulate stratigraphy evolution, and also assess the impact of these forcing parameters on sedimentary architectures construction and spatio-temporal heterogeneities.
First, we demonstrate the use of Tellus with simple examples of concurrent action of imposed tectonic uplift and climatic regime over landscape evolution. Obtained results show that the model successfully reproduces the main features of landscape behaviours and flow evolution with agreements with both natural and analogue studies in terms of elevation evolution, denudation rate and fluid velocities.Then, we use a genetic case to simulate the impact of climate and tectonic on stratigraphy, we investigate the construction of sedimentary structures as well as sediment heterogeneity over the modelled domain for several scenarios.
Although we still have to test the code on real cases, the presented results already show Tellus ability to investigate several problems directly link to petroleum and mineral exploration.