The Discontinuous Galerkin Finite Element Method and the Julia programming language for geophysical modelling.
Summary
Geodynamic modelling is used to enhance how we understand the physical processes which
drive micro- and macro scale processes over geological time scales. With continuous
development of the methods and computational techniques used, numerical models are always
improving in resolution and accuracy. A technique emerging in this field is the discontinuous
Galerkin Finite Element Method, this method has shown promise in other fields. So,
implementing this for the heat transport equation can be the stepping stone into making this
method more regularly used by Geosciences students. Another area where a lot of progress is
made concerning speeding up calculations is a relatively new programming language: Julia.
This thesis will compare Julia with the more widely used programming language Python. If
Julia is as fast and easy to use as many believe it to be it can be a very promising
programming language for future Geosciences students.