Spatial modelling in biogeochemistry

Statistical Physics and Complexity Group meeting

Spatial modelling in biogeochemistry

  • Event time: 11:30am
  • Event date: 15th January 2014
  • Speaker: Timothy Bush (Formerly School of Physics & Astronomy, University of Edinburgh)
  • Location: Room 2511,

Event details

Many key steps in global geochemical cycles are mediated by microbial life. Because of this, any model hoping to accurately reproduce how these chemicals are spatially distributed in the environment must include terms for microbial metabolism as well as fluid dynamics.


I will show how geochemists combine the theory of flow through a porous medium with equations for microbial growth, to arrive at a reaction-advection-diffusion equation that can be used to predict the time evolution of chemical distributions in ocean sediment.


I will then briefly explain how to solve this equation using a Crank-Nicolson method with operator splitting.