The Basalt Cycle By Scott Stromberg

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The Basalt CycleBy Scott Stromberg
This video simulates an oceanic plate cooling
with distance from a mid-ocean ridge and
ultimately subducting beneath continental crust.
It also simulates an orogenic event on land that
results from crustal compression and volcanic
activity.
The oceanic crust is modeled by the 2-D heat
equation T(x, y, t ?t) ?t c/?x2 T(x ?x,
y, t) - 2T(x, y, t) T(x - ?x, y, t) ?t c/?
y2 T(x, y ?y, t) - 2T(x, y, t) T(x, y - ?y,
t) T(x, y, t) Which is discretized in the code
to Znew(i,j) kdt2/(dx22)(Z(i1,j)-2Z(i,j)Z
(i-1,j))kdt2/(dy22)(Z(i,j1)-2Z(i,j)Z(i,j-1)
)Z(i,j)
The uplift and erosion of the mountain belt is
modeled by the Perron et al. method with
parameters dt 50 m1 n1 theta_c 1 K
1e-5 D 0.005 U 0.2
Prepared for UC Berkeley course EPS 109 Computer
Simulations in Earth and Planetary Science, fall
2009, Instructor B. Militzer
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