Grain Size Pinned State

This folder contains information about benchmarks that test the implementation of grain size evolution following the paper of

Mulyukova, E., & Bercovici, D. (2018). Collapse of passive margins by lithospheric damage and plunging grain size. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 484, 341-352.

Grain size growth

tests/grain_size_growth_pinned.prm is a test that ensures the grain growth term is implemented correctly. See the parameter file for a detailed description.

Equilibrium grain size

tests/grain_size_strain_pinned_state.prm is a test that ensures the correct equilibrium grain size is reached for simple flow conditions. See the parameter file and the notebook equilibrium_grain_size_pinned_state.ipynb in this folder for more information.

Dynamic grain size evolution

tests/grain_size_strain_pinned.prm is a test that ensures the correct dynamic grain size change is computed for simple flow conditions. See the parameter file and the notebook dynamic_grain_size_pinned_state.ipynb in this folder for more information.

Grain size plunge at passive margins

grain_size_plunge.prm is a benchmark case that reproduces the model in Fig. 4 of Mulyukova and Bercovici [2018]. It models the grain size evolution under constant stress in a passive margin. No analytical expression for the time-evolution of the grain size exists, but plotting the evolution using the script plot.plt shows a grain size and viscosity evolution that is very close to Fig.4 of the publication, see Fig. 239.

Fig. 239 Comparison of the grain size evolution and viscosity evolution of the ASPECT benchmark compared to Fig.4 of Mulyukova Bercovici 2018.