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LaMEM.jlGeodynamic modelling in Julia

Set up, run and analyse LaMEM simulations directly from Julia — no manual PETSc or MPI installation required.

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Julia model setup
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Easy installation

Automatically downloads LaMEM binaries with the correct PETSc and MPI for your platform (Linux, macOS, Windows).

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Julia ecosystem

Define geometry, materials, boundary conditions and solver options entirely in Julia with sensible defaults. Read LaMEM output back into Julia.

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Run in parallel

Launch LaMEM on multiple cores with a single function call — no manual mpiexec configuration needed.

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HPC ready

Prepare model files on a workstation and copy to a cluster to run large models there.

What is LaMEM? ​

LaMEM (Lithosphere and Mantle Evolution Model) is a parallel 3D numerical code for thermo-mechanical geodynamical simulations. Key features include:

  • Visco-elasto-plastic rheologies for mantle-lithosphere interaction
  • Geomechanical problems, (compressible) poroelasticity, and a gravity solver
  • Adjoint inversion framework
  • Marker-in-cell approach with staggered finite difference discretization
  • Built on top of PETSc — runs on anything from a laptop to a massively parallel machine
  • (Galerkin) multigrid and iterative solvers for linear and non-linear rheologies, using Picard and quasi-Newton solvers
  • Tested on large parallel machines on up to 458'752 cores

LaMEM.jl provides a Julia interface to LaMEM that handles installation, model setup, job execution and postprocessing.

Citation ​

If you use LaMEM in your research, please cite the original peer-reviewed extended abstract that describes it:

  • Kaus, B.J.P., Popov, A.A., Baumann, T., Pusok, A., Bauville, A., Fernandez, N., Collignon, M. (2016). Forward and Inverse Modelling of Lithospheric Deformation on Geological Timescales. NIC Series, 48, 299-306, ISBN:978-3-95806-109-5.

A more recent publication that gives some more recent details is:

  • Schuler, C., Kaus, B.J.P., Breton, E.L., Riel, N., Popov, A.A., 2025. Mantle Dynamics in the Mediterranean and Plate Motion of the Adriatic Microplate: Insights From 3D Thermomechanical Modeling. Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems 26, e2024GC011996. https://doi.org/10.1029/2024GC011996

And for reproducibility reasons, you should always cite the correct version number you use. For LaMEM.jl that is given by the most recent version of the code on zenodo.

Funding ​

LaMEM is an open source software project mainly developed at the Johannes-Gutenberg University in Mainz (Germany). The key funding came from:

  • The European Research Council through Grants ERC StG 258830 (MODEL), ERC PoC 713397 (SALTED) and ERC CoG 771143 (MAGMA)
  • The German ministry of Science and Eduction (BMBF) through projects SECURE, PERMEA, and PERMEA2.
  • Priority programs of the German research foundation (DFG), specifically the 4DMB and Habitable Earth projects.

The development of the Julia interface to LaMEM was supported by the European Research Council under grant ERC CoG #771143 - MAGMA and by the EuroHPC Center of Excellence ChEESE-2p.