Software/Code

MODEL SETUP

• Build complex, user-defined input fields from simple descriptions.

Convert data that is easy to provide (profiles, scattered points, constant values, or functions) into the full 2D map-view fields a model needs, such as topography, rainfall, erodibility, and uplift or velocity. This lets users prescribe detailed, custom fields.

• Integrate kinematic inputs from balanced cross-sections.

Convert displacement grids exported from MOVE into the velocity and displacement fields that force the model. This carries a real structural restoration directly into the surface-process simulation.

• Generate velocity fields from user-defined fault geometry.

A dedicated toolchain lets users define fault geometry in 2D or 3D. It computes velocities along profiles and through 3D space (assuming fault-parallel flow) and writes the gridded input fields. This captures true 3D structures such as lateral and oblique ramps and tear faults. A simpler mode builds along-strike segmented velocity fields when full 3D is not needed.

• Schedule time-varying forcing efficiently.

Build and organize the input files, sometimes hundreds of files, that change velocity and rainfall through geologic time. These files are read at run time by the dynamic field-swapping capability described under Model Process below.

• One-step model configuration.

Set up an entire model from a single human-readable config file (Badlands), or from master setup notebooks where users edit only the inputs and all input files and data processing are generated automatically (Fastscape).

• Inspect and clean profile data before gridding.

Interactively review and edit 1D profile data before it is converted into 2D map-view fields.

MODEL PROCESS (runtime behavior)

• Dynamically change input fields during a run.

Swap velocity and rainfall fields through geologic time for complex, user-defined scenarios that can span hundreds of steps. This includes an efficient field-swapping capability that the Python version of Fastscape otherwise lacks.

• Track individual surface points through 3D deformation.

Keep a persistent identity for each surface point as the mesh translates and as points are inserted or removed during faulting and remeshing.

• Transport rock and sediment erodibility with the moving mesh.

Carry bedrock and sediment erodibility correctly under full 3D displacement. This fixes a Badlands limitation in which erodibility moved correctly only for vertical motion.

• Apply a threshold hillslope angle.

Relax over-steepened topography toward a critical slope, a simple representation of landsliding.

• Couple tectonic loading into flexural isostasy.

Standard landscape models compute isostatic flexure only from erosion and deposition loads. Here the vertical and lateral velocity field also produces tectonic thickening and thinning, and that load is added to the flexural response. This couples structural deformation to isostasy.

• Control boundary elevation under lateral translation.

Apply boundary uplift so that topography moved into the model domain by lateral translation enters at a reasonable elevation. This provides a way to control the boundary condition for laterally moving meshes.

POST-PROCESSING

• Compute transient erosion and deposition rates on a moving mesh.

Use the tracked surface points to measure erosion and deposition rates even when the mesh is laterally displaced.

• Visualize and export results.

Produce interactive 3D visualizations in ParaView of stratigraphy, fault surfaces, and displacement fields, plus map-view figure plots.