To support ongoing research in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Petroleum Experts Limited (Petex) donated the MOVE suite of software, valued at $2,180,000, to the department.

MOVE is kinematic software that allows users to either remove deformation and resemble stratigraphy to its undeformed state, or sequentially deform strata to illustrate how faults and folds develop with time.  The MOVE suite provides the complete range of tools to build, balance, restore, and analyse cross-sections at a local and regional scale, as well as build detailed and complex 3-D models linking surface and subsurface geology and geometry. In addition, the suite contains modules that facilitate isostatic, fracture, and fault response modeling, as well as fault, stress, and isostatic response analysis.

Professors John Suppe, Jonny Wu, Mike Murphy, and Paul Mann and their research groups use MOVE to create sequentially forward modeled cross-sections of orogen scale fold and thrust belt systems in Taiwan, the Himalayas, South America, Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean to explore the relationship between the geometry of faults, their rate and age, and the cooling history of rocks as expressed in mineral cooling ages.

The MOVE suite is also used in three graduate level courses. The department greatly appreciates the opportunity Petex provided for our students and faculty to work with the MOVE software suite.