As mentioned, packages can be installed directly from our conda channel. You may however want to build your own package at some point in the future or you may want to fix some of ours by submitting a Pull Request on github (You are more welcome to do so...) The following goes through the steps of building a conda package for Badlands which contains Python and Fortran code. This is relatively advanced but not really difficult.

Viscoelastic materials exhibit the properies of both solids and liquids, with deformation rates dependent on both the viscous stress and elastic stress rate.

Modelling the relative time-scales of the Rayleigh-Taylor Instability and delamination, using Underworld With Adam Beall, Cardiff University. Why model sub-continental gravitational instabilities? Within the plate tectonics framework, continents are generally considered to have a much lower density than the asthenosphere below and therefore avoid the kind of recycling that the oceanic crust and lithosphere undergoes.

Using physical units and how to appropriately scale a model is a top question users ask when beginning with Underworld. The equations Underworld solves are stated in a physically correct form, they remain valid as long as every material constant, geometry, time, etc., are expressed in the same system.  There is no explicit concept of units no scaling in Underworld, the choice is entirely left to the user.

While huge improvements in usability have been achieved in Underworld2, the installation process is still unfortunately as painful as ever. This difficulty is in large part due to Underworld's numerous dependencies, and also the multiple platforms we try to support. Compounding this, the legacy of a individual user's machine often conspires against success, rarely in obvious ways. Simply, compiling is not fun. Enter docker.

In a recent paper [1], we used Underworld models to examine subduction congestion associated with the ingestion of a continental ribbon. The SE Australian geological record turned out to be a wonderful place to study this process. Here is a short summary of the work for a relatively non-technical audience that we put together and some additional figures which I prepared.