Fall 2021: GLY 4930/GLY 6932 Introduction to Simulations and Computational Techniques for Earth Sciences

This course gives an introduction to programming in Python, using examples from the Earth Sciences. No previous programming knowledge is required. To teach the computational techniques given in the learning objectives below, I will use applications relevant to Earth Sciences such as analyzing earthquake magnitudes, plotting geospatial data or how the orientation of dikes is distributed, computing the discharge of a river, analyzing the grain size distribution of rocks, or modeling the carbon cycle.

Course objectives:

• Learning the basics of Python syntax. This includes the very first program (“Hello World!”), indentation, assigning variables, basic math and logic operations, decision making and loops, and input and output of data.
• Building Python programming skills including the development of stand-alone programs, the usage of existing Python packages/modules, function definitions, and program structure best practices.
• Learning fundamental data analysis techniques including basic statistical analysis, plotting and fitting data.
• Learning the basics of numerical simulations including time and space discretization techniques and how to implement them in Python.

Syllabus coming soon!