Seminar:  Bayesian inference for computationally expensive Earth evolution models
Channel: Rohitash Chandra
Date: 2018-10-20

Optimisation and Logistics Group, School of Computer Science,  University of Adelaide

Badlands (basin and landscape dynamics model) is geoscientific model that simulates topography development at various space and time scales. Badlands consists of a number of geophysical parameters that need to be estimated or optimized  with appropriate uncertainty quantification, given the observed ground truth such as surface topography, sediment thickness and stratigraphy through time. This is challenging due to the scarcity of data, sensitivity of the parameters and complexity of the Badlands model. BayesLands is a Bayesian framework for Badlands that fuses information obtained from complex forward models with observational data and prior knowledge. Our previous work showed that BayesLands yields a promising estimation  of free parameters such as precipitation and erodibility for small-scale problems.  This presentation gives an overview of BayesLands  that features parallel tempering in a high performance computing environment. Furthermore, current progress  in  surrogate-assisted parallel tempering  for  is shown that encourages  its use for continental scale landscape evolution problems.  This  motivates  the use of evolutionary optimisation methods in synergy  with  parallel tempering for related geo-scientific models and computationally expensive optimisation problems.

About the presenter:

Dr. Rohitash Chandra is USyd Research Fellow at the School of Geosciences and Centre for Translational Data Science at the University of Sydney.  Dr. Chandra's research interests are in areas of deep learning, neuro-evolution, co-evolutionary algorithms and Bayesian methods. Currently, he is involved in projects that employ machine learning and Bayesian inference via parallel tempering for solid Earth evolution, mineral exploration, and reef modelling. Further information: https://sydney.edu.au/science/people/rohitash.chandra.php