Dr Tristan Salles – EarthByte

pyBadlands: A framework to simulate sediment transport, landscape dynamics and basin stratigraphic evolution through space and time

17 April, 2018 by Danial Azam

Abstract Understanding Earth surface responses in terms of sediment dynamics to climatic variability and tectonics forcing is hindered by limited ability of current models to simulate long-term evolution of sediment transfer and associated morphological changes. This paper presents pyBadlands, an open-source python-based framework which computes over geological time (1) sediment transport from landmasses to coasts, … Read more…

Untangling The Role Of Climate On Sediment And Reef Evolution Over Millennial Timescales

3 April, 2018 by Danial Azam

Climatic variability like precipitation changes or increase in extreme events such as storms and tropical cyclones is known to significantly modify the Earth’s surface. Yet, our understanding of how sediment dynamics and reef evolution might respond to these changes is still limited. In a recent study, a team of researchers from the University of Sydney’s … Read more…

EarthByte Honours and Masters Projects 2018

6 October, 201723 October, 2017 by Sam Russel

EarthByte has now released a list of Honours/Masters projects to be offered in 2018. These projects are outlined below. Project Title Supervisor(s) Dynamic Earth models, landscape dynamics and basin evolution in Australasia Dietmar Müller, Sabin Zahirovic, Tristan Salles, Rohit Chandra, Sally Cripps (Centre for Translational Data Science) Incorporating modern plate tectonic reconstructions into box models of the deep-time deep-Earth … Read more…

Influence of mantle flow on the drainage of eastern Australia since the Jurassic period

28 September, 201720 October, 2017 by Maxim Adams

Author List: Tristan Salles, Nicolas Flament & Dietmar Müller. Citation: Salles, Tristan & Flament, Nicolas & Müller, Dietmar. (2017). Influence of mantle flow on the drainage of eastern Australia since the Jurassic Period. Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems. 18. . 10.1002/2016GC006617. Abstract: Recent studies of the past eastern Australian landscape from present-day longitudinal river profiles and from mantle flow models … Read more…

Five minutes with Tristan Salles

8 August, 2017 by Sam Russel

Avid traveller and explorer, geophysicist Dr Tristan Salles, discusses his childhood in Africa and his experiences as an early-career researcher. What is your background, and why did you decide to join the University? I grew up in Africa, living in Madagascar, Cameroon and Senegal before moving to France at 17. My dad was an avid lepidopterist [the … Read more…

2017 Artemis HPC Grand Challenge winner

22 June, 201726 June, 2017 by Ruken

Tristan Salles from the School of Geosciences, University of Sydney has been announced as one of four winners of the 2017 Artemis high-performance computing challenge, securing over $2Mio worth of CPU hours over 4 years. Tristan and his collaborators from the EarthByte Group and the Centre for Translational Data Science were allocated the equivalent of … Read more…

Understanding the Deep Carbon Cycle from Icehouse to Greenhouse Climates

8 May, 201716 May, 2017 by Ruken

Sydney Research Excellence Initiative grant (2017-2018) Research area, key questions, significance, and innovation. The planet is experiencing a major transition from an icehouse climate, one dominated by permanent continental ice sheets at high latitudes, to a greenhouse climate that favours ice-free conditions. Although part of the deglaciation trend is influenced by a natural orbital cycle, … Read more…

Badlands v2.0 is released

3 February, 201716 June, 2017 by Ruken

Today version 2.0 of Badlands has been released This release add new capabilities to the code: simulates river entering in the simulation area output of Chi parameter in Hdf5 flow network multi-erodibility layers creation 3D stratigraphic layer displacements This release is compatible with version 1.0.0 and will work with similar XML input files. Download Badlands (source … Read more…

Basin Genesis Hub computer model explains Early Cretaceous eastward flow of ancient Murray River

24 January, 201725 January, 2017 by Carmen Braz

Australia is an outstanding natural laboratory to study the influence of dynamic topography on landscape evolution, having been largely unaffected by tectonic deformation since the Jurassic. Recent studies of the past eastern Australian landscape from present-day longitudinal river profiles and from mantle flow models suggest that the interaction of plate motion with mantle convection accounts for the two phases of large-scale uplift of the region since 120 Ma. … Read more…

Basin Genesis Hub surface processes workshop

13 October, 201614 December, 2016 by Carmen Braz

Greetings from the surface processes workshop using the open-source Badlands code developed by our very own Tristan Salles as part of the Basin GENESIS Hub. Today we covered how to use Docker/Kitematic to download the pyBadlands virtual machine and run the examples (mountain building, delta formation, and so on). … Read more…

Jiabao Zhang’s summer internship in the Basin Genesis Hub

11 October, 201614 October, 2016 by Carmen Braz

Jiabao Zhang, bachelor student at the University of Geosciences in Wuhan, China, visited the Basin Genesis Hub for a month in September 2016 to practice numerical modelling in geomorphology under the supervision of Dr Gilles Brocard and Dr Tristan Salles. … Read more…

SoftwareX – Badlands: A parallel basin and landscape dynamics model

3 October, 201628 September, 2017 by Carmen Braz

Abstract: Over more than three decades, a number of numerical landscape evolution models (LEMs) have been developed to study the combined effects of climate, sea-level, tectonics and sediments on Earth surface dynamics. Most of them are written in efficient programming languages, but often cannot be used on parallel architectures. Here, I present a LEM which … Read more…

Surface Processes Modelling Workshop

26 September, 201626 September, 2016 by Carmen Braz

The EarthByte Group will conduct a 2 days workshop on surface processes modelling on the 13th and 14th of October in the Madsen Building at the School of Geoscience, The University of Sydney, Australia.

The workshop aims to introduce those interested in landscape evolution and source to sink problems to a new open-source code: Badlands. Note that you do not have to be a seasoned modeller to participate. Geomorphologists, tectonicists and sedimentologists interested in testing conceptual models based on field observations are welcome! … Read more…

Computers & Geosciences – Badlands: An open-source, flexible and parallel framework to study landscape dynamics

30 March, 201613 October, 2017 by Ruken

Author List: Tristan Salles, Luke Hardiman Citation: Salles, T., and Hardiman, L. (2016). Badlands: An open-source, flexible and parallel framework to study landscape dynamics. Computers & Geosciences 91 77–89. DOI: 10.1016/j.cageo.2016.03.011 Abstract: In this paper, we propose a minimal numerical model which governing equations describe the following processes: erosion, sedimentation, diffusion and flexure. The model respects conservation … Read more…

Computers & Geosciences – Badlands: An open-source, flexible and parallel framework to study landscape dynamics

30 March, 201621 October, 2016 by Carmen Braz

Salles, T., and Hardiman, L. (2016). Badlands: An open-source, flexible and parallel framework to study landscape dynamics. Computers & Geosciences 91 77–89. DOI: 10.1016/j.cageo.2016.03.011 Badlands: An open-source, flexible and parallel framework to study landscape dynamics

2016 supercomputing resources

15 January, 201615 January, 2016 by Stephen

The EarthByte group has been awarded 11 million computing hours, representing the equivalent of k$AU440, to carry out research for the Basin GENESIS Hub on the supercomputers Raijin (National Computational Infrastructure) and Magnus (Pawsey Supercomputing Centre) for 2016 through the National Computational Merit Allocation Scheme (7.25 MSUs, one of the top 4 allocations across all disciplines … Read more…

Opening of ARC Basin Genesis INDUSTRIAL TRANSFORMATION RESEARCH HUB

19 August, 201530 August, 2015 by Stephen

Basin GENESIS Hub opening group photo 19 August 2015

The ARC Research Hub for Basin Geodynamics and Evolution of Sedimentary Systems (Basin GENESIS Hub) opened today at a reception held in the Charles Perkins Centre at the University of Sydney. The launch as attended by representatives from Universities, industry, Geoscience Australia, the ARC, the NCI and the Office of the NSW Chief Scientist and Engineer.

The Basin GENESIS Hub will use computer modelling to fine-tune our understanding of the nation’s sedimentary basins, which hold many of the natural resources we use in day-to-day life.

The research will be of fundamental importance to the geo-software industry used by exploration and mining companies, explains Hub Director Professor Dietmar Müller from the University of Sydney. … Read more…

Badlands v1.0 is released

11 August, 201526 August, 2015 by Stephen

Today Tristan has released version 1.0 of Badlands, a parallel TIN-based landscape evolution model, built to simulate topography development at various space and time scales. Congratulations Tristan! Download Badlands (source code, documentation and examples) from GitHub here

Basin and Landscape Dynamics (Badlands)

11 August, 201526 August, 2015 by Stephen

Basin and Landscape Dynamics (Badlands) is a parallel TIN-based landscape evolution model, built to simulate topography development at various space and time scales. The model is capable of simulating hillslope processes, fluvial incision (erosion/transport/deposition), spatially and temporally varying geodynamic (3D displacements) and climatic forces which can be used to simulate changes in base level, as … Read more…

High horizontal fault displacement rates and landscape evolution

11 August, 201526 August, 2015 by Stephen

In this numerical model of landscape evolution we impose over 2 million of years deformation produced with the Underworld software over an initial flat surface, ie a 256 km square box at a resolution of 1 km. On top of the deformed surface, a landscape evolution model, Badlands, is used to simulate both hillslope and … Read more…

Earth’s climate throughout the Phanerozoic

26 July, 201530 November, 2015 by Stephen

Project Summary
EarthByte is involved in a series of projects aimed at understanding and modeling Earth’s climate throughout the Phanerozoic. Some of these projects include:

Future Fellowship of Maria Seton on “Oceanic gateways: a primary control on global climate change?”
Basin GENESIS Hub activities, related to the effect of the mantle, crustal deformation, erosion and sedimentary processes on sedimentary basins
ATOM – a coupled atmospheric-ocean circulation code jointly developed by Prof. Roger Grundmann and EarthByte.

EarthByte’s expertise in tectonics, geodynamics and surface process modeling is enhanced by close collaborations with leading palaeoclimate modellers and geochemical oceanographers. … Read more…

Earth's climate throughout the Phanerozoic

26 July, 2015 by Ruken

Project Summary
EarthByte is involved in a series of projects aimed at understanding and modeling Earth’s climate throughout the Phanerozoic. Some of these projects include:

Future Fellowship of Maria Seton on “Oceanic gateways: a primary control on global climate change?”
Basin GENESIS Hub activities, related to the effect of the mantle, crustal deformation, erosion and sedimentary processes on sedimentary basins
ATOM – a coupled atmospheric-ocean circulation code jointly developed by Prof. Roger Grundmann and EarthByte.

The Basin GENESIS Hub

16 November, 20141 April, 2017 by Stephen

The ARC Research Hub for Basin Geodynamics and Evolution of Sedimentary Systems (Basin GENESIS Hub) is a showcase of connecting “Big Data” analysis and high-performance computing in an open innovation framework. The hub will fuse multidimensional data into 5D basin models (space and time, with uncertainty estimates) by coupling the evolution of mantle flow, crustal deformation, erosion and sedimentary processes using open-source modelling tools.

The project will develop quantitative, cutting edge data analysis techniques to underpin the testing of new concepts for understanding basin structures, and aid in driving sustainable use of basin resources. The development of new high-performance simulation and data mining tools, making use of new petascale computing capabilities, will connect big, multidimensional data sets to cutting edge machine learning and modelling algorithms to cross a wide spectrum of spatial and temporal scales. … Read more…