Computational Infrastructure for Geodynamics, CIG

研究人员建议开发一个地球动力学计算基础设施（CIG），它将为更大的地球动力学社区从模型开发者到最终用户开发、支持和传播社区可访问的软件。该软件将开发广泛的问题，从地幔和核心动力学，地壳和地震动力学，岩浆迁移，地震学，和相关的主题。有了高水平的社区参与，CIG将把科学计算中的最先进技术转化为一套开源工具和代码。基础设施将包括：(a)协调努力，开发可重复使用、文件完备和开源的地球动力学软件；(b)软件的基本构件（即基础设施层），用以快速组装最先进的建模代码；(c)扩展现有的软件架构，通过上层建筑层连接多个代码和数据；(d)与更广泛的计算科学和地理信息学领域建立战略伙伴关系；(e)为地球动力学和较大的地球科学界提供专门培训和讲习班；(f)适当的硬件资源用于软件开发和社区使用。CIG提议组建一个由专门的软件架构师和工程师组成的小型核心团队，他们的工作将以地球动力学社区制定的科学目标为指导。这个软件开发团队将在编程、文档、培训和全职支持方面为社区提供全面的软件服务。对程序员的指导将来自常设委员会和任务小组，其重点是确定和平衡跨学科的共同需求。软件开发团队将被安置在创新技术中心（CIT 2），这是位于帕萨迪纳的一个新的校外设施，将由加州理工学院管理，以造福国家地球动力学社区。智力优势：通过提供大大改进建模所需的计算基础设施，CIG将使地球动力学多个领域的科学进步成为可能。通过CIG，计算地球动力学将与两个更大的科学重点联系起来：科学计算和地理信息学。在这两个领域中，CIG计划已经开始利用和发展开放源码开发工作的长期战略伙伴关系。这些战略合作伙伴关系是必不可少的，因为前沿已经进入多尺度和多物理问题，许多研究人员现在希望使用模拟软件进行数据解释，数据同化和假设检验。来自EarthScope计划的即将到来的数据洪流为整个地球科学界的利益提供了一个独特的机会来开发地球动力学的计算基础设施。更广泛的影响：通过创建编程支持和软件基础设施，CIG将对我们的科学产生广泛的影响，这些基础设施将比任何单个研究人员的研究努力更持久，并通过提供常规和快速解决以前棘手问题的方法来提高科学发现的速度。CIG不仅将提供将地球动力学与计算科学和地理信息学联系起来的手段，而且还将促进不同分支学科之间的交流。CIG将通过多学科和跨学科的会议、研讨会和合作，以及用最先进的计算地球动力学方法教育新一代地球科学家，来影响地球科学。

The investigators propose to develop a Computational Infrastructure for Geodynamics (CIG) which will develop, support, and disseminate community-accessible software for the greater geodynamics community from model developers to end-users. The software will be developed for problems ranging widely from mantle and core dynamics, crustal and earthquake dynamics, magma migration, seismology, and related topics. With a high level of community participation, CIG would leverage the state-of-the-art in scientific computing into a suite of open-source tools and codes. The infrastructure would consists of: (a) a coordinated effort to develop reusable, well-documented and open-source geodynamics software; (b) the basic building blocks - an infrastructure layer - of software by which state-of-the-art modeling codes could be quickly assembled; (c) extension of existing software frameworks to interlink multiple codes and datathrough a superstructure layer; (d) strategic partnerships with the larger world of computational science and geoinformatics; (e) specialized training and workshops for both the geodynamics and larger Earth science communities; and (f) modest hardware resources for software development and community use.CIG is proposing to house a small core team of dedicated software architects and engineers whose work will be guided by scientific objectives formulated by the geodynamics community. This Software Development Team will provide full software service to the community in terms of programming, documentation, training, and full-time support. Guidance for the programmers will come from standing committees and task groups whose emphasis is to identify and balance common needs across disciplines. The software development team will be housed in the Center for Innovative Technologies (CIT 2 ), a new off campus facility in Pasadena, which would be managed by Caltech for the benefit of the national geodynamics community. Intellectual Merit: CIG would enable scientific progress in multiple areas of geodynamics, by providing the computational infrastructure needed for vastly improved modeling. Through CIG, computational geodynamics will become connected with two much larger scientific thrusts:Scientific computing and geoinformatics. The CIG initiative has already started to leverage and develop long-term strategic partnerships with open source development efforts within both areas.These strategic partnerships are essential as the frontier has moved into multi-scale and multi-physics problems in which many investigators now want to use simulation software for data interpretation, data assimilation, and hypothesis testing. The impending flood of data from the EarthScope initiative provides a unique opportunity to develop computational infrastructure in geodynamics for the benefit of the entire Earth science community. Broader Impacts: CIG will have a broad impact upon our science through the creation ofprogramming support and software infrastructure that will outlast the research efforts of any individual researcher and increase the rate of scientific discovery by providing the means to routinely and rapidly solve formerly intractable problems. CIG will not only provide the means of linking geodynamics with computational science and geoinformatics, but it will foster communication between different subdisciplines. CIG will impact geoscience through multi- and interdisciplinary conferences, workshops, and collaborations, and by educating a new generation of Earth scientists in state-of-the-art methods of computational geodynamics.