GARY A. GLATZMAIER Professor of Earth & Planetary Sciences Computer simulation of geodynamics and planetary dynamics
		Office: EMS A102 Phone: 831-459-5504 Fax: 831-459-3074 E-mail: glatz@es.ucsc.edu Lab: C317/C373 x9-4426		For more information: • Website • Publications

Education and Training

Ph.D., University of Colorado, Boulder
B.S., Marquette University, Milwaukee

Research Interests

Gary develops global three-dimensional time-dependent computer models to study the structure and dynamics of the interiors of planets and stars. The first in this series of models was written in the 1980s to study the solar dynamo. A modified version of this was used for pre-flight studies and post-flight analyses of a rotating fluid dynamics experiment flown aboard NASA Space Shuttles in 1985 and 1995. In his studies of geodynamics he has simulated global circulation and convection in the Earth's atmosphere, mantle and core. He has also simulated convection and magnetic field generation in the deep interiors of giant gas planets like Jupiter and Saturn.

In the 1990s, Gary produced dynamically-consistent computer simulations of the geodynamo, the mechanism in the Earth's fluid outer core that maintains the geomagnetic field. The simulations span several millions of years, using an average numerical time step of 15 days. At the surface of the model Earth, the simulated magnetic field has an intensity, an axial dipole dominated structure, and a westward drift of the non-dipolar structure that are all similar to the Earth's. The model's solid inner core rotates slightly faster than the surface of the model Earth; this computer modeling result in 1995 served as a prediction for the Earth that several seismic analyses now support. Several spontaneous reversals of the magnetic dipole polarity also occur in the simulations, similar to those seen in the Earth's paleomagnetic record.

Gary and his graduate students are currently focused on the internal magnetohydrodynamics of giant planets and stars. Their recent dynamo simulations of Saturn maintain a banded zonal wind profile on the surface and a dipole dominated magnetic field, both similar to that measured on Saturn. Their studies of the solar interior have produced simulations of gravity waves in the sun's deep radiative interior excited by turbulence in the outer convection zone.

Another graduate student is working with Gary on three-dimensional computer simulations of volcanic eruptions.

Teaching Interests

Geophysical Fluid Dynamics | Magnetohydrodynamics | Introduction to Scientific Computing | Fluid Dynamics