Illuminating Earth´s interior through advanced computing

Today´s computational strategies for modeling Earth´s interior structure and dynamics come from high-performance computing systems in the US and others such as the Japanese Earth Simulator. Modeling efforts currently underway focus on problems such as geodynamo and earthquake modeling. Space-based measurement and observational technologies are revolutionizing our understanding of the solid Earth and revealing subtle changes that occur on regional and global scales. Understanding these complex processes requires large global data sets and sophisticated computational models coupled with the necessary associated computational infrastructure. The authors discuss how the rapidly increasing availability of data and a more robust and pervasive computational infrastructure could combine to give us new opportunities to understand this complex system.