Center for Computational Geophysics - Facilities

Facilities

The Earth Science Department and Center for Computational Geophysics have an extensive computing facility established with funds from the Keck Foundation, and with grants from the National Science Foundation, the Office of Naval Research, DoE, Sun Microsystems, and the petroleum industry.

Hardware:

The Center for Computational Geophysics has three large SMP computers and a 24 node, 48 cpu cluster. We have recently acquired a 14 node, 112 core, 336 Gbyte memory/infini-band connected Linux cluster for high performance computing with funds from NSF EAR Instruments and Facilities.

The computing network includes a department server and ~100 MacIntosh, Windows, and Linux desktop workstations, as well as several small cluster computers and ~100 Tbyte disk.

The CCG is part of a consortium of Rice faculty who have purchased larger cluster computers including the Shared University Grid @ Rice (SUG@R), an Intel Xeon-based cluster, and ADA, a Cray XD1 AMD Opteron-based cluster. The machines are operated by the Research Computing Support Group (RCSG) and are housed at Rice's Data Center.

CCG faculty and other Rice scientists and engineers competed successfully for a 2010 NSF MRI (Major Research Infrastructure) award for acquisition of a new 192 node, 2034 core, 6.912 Tbyte memory Linux cluster, named DaVinCi. for high performance Science and Engineering computing. The machine will have 250 TByte NFS storage, and 100 Tbyte of fast scratch disk. This facility will be operated as part of the Shared Research Computing. Read more about the upcoming DaVinCi facility.

Software:

Landmark™ software is used for seismic reflection data processing research, with the Landmark™ suite and Schlumberger's Petrel™ used for seismic interpretation. Seismic stratigraphic and seismic interpretation workstations are also available.

Dynamic Graphics, Inc.'s EarthVision™ package is used for 3D visualization. Math programs include Matlab™, Mathematica™, and Maple™.

All workstations have access to the Landmark™ software, as well as hundreds of other packages for mapping, controlled source seismology, global seismology, and geodynamics.

Visualization:

The department has black-and-white and color laserjet printers and two 60-inch HP™ color plotters. We operate the large bed plotters for the entire Rice community.

As part of our recent NSF MRI award we are establishing a 3D interactive stereo visualization center to be housed in the Earth Science building. The facility should be online early in 2011.