I attended the computational geophysics workshop at Princeton (Mar 14-15, 2016). Th
e workshop introduced participants to SPECFEM2D, SPECFEM3D_Globe and SPECFEM3D_Cartesian [workshop link here]. These research tools are useful for full waveform modeling and inversion of the seismic wave-field. The capabilities to visualize wave-field propagation in complex media is also a very great tool for teaching. Students get to see how the seismic wave field propagates through elastic media with various scales of complexity. I’ll be sure to look at ways to incorporate this visualization capabilities into my classes.
I also learnt about how current advances in computational technology is speeding up the imaging using both the forward and inverse calculation of the seismic wavefield e.g. cluster computing, GPU computing and the adaptable seismic data formats. I also learnt to use the meshing tools internal to the various SPECFEM packages as well as the commercial meshing package TRELIS. Other learning resources can be found on the website of the computational infrastructure for geodynamics [link] and a good start can be downloading and testing the SPECFEM1D codes.