Cheaper and faster: How to have your cake and eat it too with GPU implementations of Earth Science simulations

Many complex natural systems studied in the geosciences are characterized by simple local-scale interactions that result in complex emergent behavior. Simulations of these systems, often implemented in parallel using standard CPU clusters, may be better suited to parallel processing environments with large numbers of simple processors. Such an environment is found in Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) on graphics cards. This presentation discusses graphics card implementations of three example applications from volcanology, seismology, and rock magnetics. These candidate applications involve important modeling techniques, widely employed in physical system simulation: 1) a multiphase lattice-Boltzmann code for geofluidic flows; 2) a spectral-finite-element code for seismic wave propagation simulations; and 3) a least-squares minimization code for interpreting magnetic force microscopy data. Significant performance increases, between one and two orders of magnitude, are seen in all three cases, demonstrating the power of graphics card implementations for these types of simulations.