LoopStructural 1.0: time-aware geological modelling

• Published in: Geoscientific Model Development Vol. 14; no. 6; pp. 3915 - 3937
• Main Authors: Grose, Lachlan, Ailleres, Laurent, Laurent, Gautier, Jessell, Mark
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Katlenburg-Lindau Copernicus GmbH 29.06.2021; European Geosciences Union; Copernicus Publications
• Subjects: Algorithms; Analysis; Case studies; Datasets; Fault lines; Geology; Geometry; Interpolation; Libraries; Modelling; Polynomials; Repeaters; Sciences of the Universe; Software; Three dimensional models
• ISSN: 1991-9603; 1991-959X; 1991-962X; 1991-9603; 1991-962X; 1991-959X
• DOI: 10.5194/gmd-14-3915-2021

In this contribution we introduce LoopStructural, a new open-source 3D geological modelling Python package (http://www.github.com/Loop3d/LoopStructural, last access: 15 June 2021). LoopStructural provides a generic API for 3D geological modelling applications harnessing the core Python scientific libraries pandas, numpy and scipy. Six different interpolation algorithms, including three discrete interpolators and 3 polynomial trend interpolators, can be used from the same model design. This means that different interpolation algorithms can be mixed and matched within a geological model allowing for different geological objects, e.g. different conformable foliations, fault surfaces and unconformities to be modelled using different algorithms. Geological features are incorporated into the model using a time-aware approach, where the most recent features are modelled first and used to constrain the geometries of the older features. For example, we use a fault frame for characterising the geometry of the fault surface and apply each fault sequentially to the faulted surfaces. In this contribution we use LoopStructural to produce synthetic proof of concepts models and a 86 km × 52 km model of the Flinders Ranges in South Australia using map2loop.