ShellSet v1.1.0 parallel dynamic neotectonic modelling: a case study using Earth5-049

Abstract

We present a parallel combination of existing, well-known and robust software used in modelling the neotectonics of planetary lithosphere, which we call ShellSet. An added parallel framework allows multiple models to be run at the same time with varied input parameters. Additionally, we have included a grid search option to automatically generate models within a given parameter space. ShellSet offers significant advantages over the original programs through its simplicity, efficiency and speed. We demonstrate the performance improvement obtained by ShellSet's parallel framework by presenting timing and speedup information for a parallel grid search, varying the number of processes and models, on both a typical computer and a high-performance computing cluster node. A possible use case for ShellSet is shown using two examples in which we improve on an existing global model. In the first example we improve the model using the same data, and in the second example we further improve the model through the addition of a new scoring dataset. The necessary ShellSet program version along with all the required input and post-processing files needed to recreate the results presented in this article are available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7986808 (May et al., 2023).