Fundamentals of computational geoscience. Numerical methods and algorithms (Q2518386)

Owing to the broad nature of geoscience problems, computational geoscience is at a developing stage. Under the stimulus of ever-increasing demand for natural mineral resources, computational geoscience has achieved much in the past decade, driven from the need to understand controlling mechanisms behind ore body formation and mineralization in hydrothermal systems within the upper crust of the earth. Thus it was high time to publish a monograph to report the current knowledge in a systematic manner. The present work aims to provide state-of-the-art numerical methods, procedures and algorithms in the field of computational geoscience, based on the author's own work during the last decade. For this purpose, although some theoretical results are provided to verify numerical ones, the main focus is on computational simulation aspects. In the monograph, the finite element method, the finite difference method and the particle simulation method are used as basic numerical approaches for dealing with geoscience problems. The specific geoscience problem under consideration is the ore body formation and mineralization problem in hydrothermal systems within the upper crust of the earth. Towards this end, the authors present the advanced procedures and algorithms in the monograph as follows: (1) Due to the important role that convective pore-fluid flow plays in the controlling processes of ore body formation and mineralizytion, a progressive asymptotic approach procedure is proposed to solve steady-state convective pore-fluid flow problems within the upper crust of the earth. (2) To consider both the thermoelastic effect and the double diffusion effect, a consistent point-searching interpolation algorithm is proposed to develop a general interface between two commercial computer codes, Fluid Dynamics Analysis Package (FIDAP) and Fast Lagrangian Analysis of Continua (FLAC). This general interface allows a combination use of the two commercial codes for solving coupled problems between medium deformation, pore-fluid flow, heat transfer and reactive mass transport processes that can occur simultaneously in hydrothermal systems. (3) To simulate mineral dissolution/precipitation and metomorphic processes, a term splitting algorithm is developed for dealing with fluid-rock interaction problems in fluid-saturated hydrothermal/sedimentary basins of subcritical Zhao numbers, in which the chemical dissolution fronts are stable during their propagation. Note that the Zhao number is a dimensionless number that can be used to represent the geometrical, hydrodynamic, thermodynamic and chemical kinetic characteristics of a reactive transport system in a comprehensive manner. The condition, under which a chemical dissolution front in the fluid-saturated porous medium becomes unstable, can be expressed by the critical value of this dimensionless number. (4) For a geochemical system with critical and supercritical Zhao numbers, a segregated algorithm is proposed for solving chemical-dissolution front instability problems in fluid-saturated porous rocks. Thus, the morphological evolution of chemical dissolution fronts in fluid-saturated porous media can be approximately simulated. (5) To investigate the effects of the non-equilibrium redox chemical reactions on the mineralization patterns in hydrothermal systems, a decoupling procedure is proposed for simulating fluids mixing, heat transfer and non-equilibrium redox chemical reactions in fluid-saturated porous rocks. (6) When thermal and chemical effects of intruded magma are taken into account, an equivalent source algorithm is presented for simulating thermal and chemical effects of intruded magma solidification problems. This algorithm enables the moving boundary problem associated with magma solidification to be effectively solved using the fixed finite element meshes. (7) To simulate spontaneous crack generation in brittle rocks within the upper crust of the earth, the particle simulation method is extended to solve spontaneous crack generation problems associated with faulting and folding in large-scale geological systems. The resulting cracks may be connected to form flow channels, which can control ore body formation and mineralization patterns within the upper crust of the earth. The monograph may be used as textbook for postgraduate students or as an indispensable reference book for computational geoscientists, mathematicians, and engineers. Each chapter is written independently of the others, so that readers may read the chapter of interest separately. (parts of the ``Preamble'')