Computational Geophysics

An introduction to weak numerical methods, in particular finite-element and spectral-element methods, used in computational geophysics. Basic surface & volume elements, representation of fields, quadrature, assembly, local versus global meshes, domain decomposition, time marching & stability, parallel implementation & message-passing, and load-balancing. In the context of parameter estimation and 'imaging', will explore data assimilation techniques and related adjoint methods. The course offers hands-on lab experience in meshing complicated surfaces & volumes as well as numerically solving partial differential equations relevant to geophysics