Blog - Andrew J. Moodie

A presentation on pyDeltaRCM and DeltaMetrics for the UTIG Discussion Hour

As part of my Postdoc research, I have been leading the development of two programming projects. Both of these projects have found a home (for now at least) ...

Field work in the Ferris Formation, Wyoming

Recently, I conducted some field work in the Hanna Basin, Central Wyoming. The Hanna basin records intermontane sediment dynamics during the Paleozoic–Early ...

pyDeltaRCM Model Subclassing for customization

A component of my postdoctoral research award includes improving flexibility, accessibility, and reproducibility of delta numerical models. In particular, my...

StratGAN

Coupling a generative adversarial network with image quilting to produce basin-scale realizations of fluvial stratigraphy.

Density stratification in the Yellow River, China

I recently submitted another dissertation chapter for publication, this one titled “Suspended-sediment induced stratification inferred from concentration and...

Machine learning in Geoscience Seminar: syllabus and review

I led the organization of a “Machine Learning in Geosciences” seminar this fall (2018). I did not do it alone, I worked with my advisor Jeff Nittrouer, and T...

AGU posters 2018: SedEdu and Density Stratification

I’m presenting two posters at AGU this year!

The Rouse-Vannoni-Ippen concentration profile interactive module

I have made another interactive GUI toy model thing for the teaching of the Rouse concentration profile. The activity is really simple right now, but I may a...

The Graduate Interdisciplinary Earth Science Symposia: a year in review, and looking to the future

Below is an article I wrote for our department newsletter about the GIESS symposia. I'm publishing it here because it didn't make the cut for the newslett...

Predicting equilibrium channel geometry with a neural network

In an attempt to learn more about ML I decided to just jump in and try a project. Predicting channel geometry with a simple neural network.

Matlab speed comparison of switch-case and if-then statements and hard-code

I frequently use the extremely methodical approach in scientific programming of “just trying things”. This means that I create a lot of different ways to tr...

Markov Chain stratigraphic model

I recently returned from the NCED2 Summer Institute for Earth Surface Dynamics at Saint Anthony Falls Laboratory at University of Minnesota, which is a 10-da...

Rivers 2 Stratigraphy

Explore the construction of stratigraphy through the interaction of channel geometry, lateral migration rate, subsidence rate, and avulsion frequency — inter...

A LaTeX package for peer review

I recently needed to do a peer review for a co-author’s manuscript. I rarely use MS Word or LO Writer anymore except for really simple documents (e.g., a qui...

Python 3 silly random name generator

I was recently working on a project to try to annoy my collaborator Eric by a scheduled script that sends him an email if there are open pull requests that I...

Density stratification in fine-grained rivers

2017 was the year of my first talk at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union. It was pretty exciting and I was extremely nervous. In the end, it ...

Hurricane Harvey update

The Greater Houston Metro just got pounded by one of the largest storms (in terms of rainfall) on record: Hurricane Harvey. There was widespread flooding acr...

Outreach module — Flooding risk in low-lying landscapes

I have put together an outreach module that describes some of the risks of flooding in low-lying landscapes. The module runs in Matlab, either within a licen...

Accepted article — Continental divide location and mobility

My first peer-reviewed manuscript was recently accepted for publication in Basin Research! The manuscript explores the controls on continental divide locatio...

China field work 2017

I’m heading off tomorrow for my third summer field campaign in China. That also means that I’ve completed three years of my PhD.

LaTeX CV formatting

My \(\LaTeX\) CV formatting has been put into repositories since this post. The materials remain at the links below, but you can find the more up to date CV ...

The exceptional sediment load of fine-grained dispersal systems: Example of the Yellow River, China — Ma et al., 2017

We’ve just published an exciting new paper in Science Advances which assess the transport of sediment in fine-grain river systems. The research is driven by ...

Vibracore extraction tripod engineering drawings — Vibracore system

For our research in China, I was charged with building a Vibracore system. The Vibracore works by utilizing a concrete vibrator to rapidly vibrate an upright...

Building a simple delta numerical model: Part VI

This will be the final piece of the model that we need to get to have a working code for delta growth: the time routine. We will define a few more terms in o...

The NPR budget and federal spending – Opinion piece

I wrote this up in response to something someone shared on Facebook (silly, I know) but I was curious to have some facts on what the numbers are. I’m reprodu...

Building a simple delta numerical model: Part V

Now we need to add a routine to update the channel bed, based upon the calculated change in sediment transport over space from the previous step. We’ll use t...

Manuscript submitted — continental divides

This paper is now published, and can be found here.

Building a simple delta numerical model: Part IV

In this part of “Building a simple delta numerical model”, we’ll write the part of our model that will solve the “Exner” equation, which determines changes i...

Building a simple delta numerical model: Part III

In this part of “Building a simple delta numerical model”, we’ll simply develop a module for calculating sediment transport at all locations within our model...

Building a simple delta numerical model: Part II

Taking the simpler form of the backwater equation, that is, assuming that width does not vary over the channel reach, we find an expression for changing flow...

Building a simple delta numerical model: Part I

This is the first in a series I’m going to write over an undetermined-number-of-parts series where we will develop all the pieces to a simple delta numerical...

Dietrich Settling Velocity Matlab code

Just about two years ago, I published a code for calculating the settling velocity of a particle in water by the Dietrich, 1982 method. I later realized an e...

Groundwater flow demonstration slides

I recently came across a set of old slides from the National Water Well Association, created in 1977. The slides can be found here as an imgur album. These i...

Yellow River shoreline traces

For some ongoing research I needed a set of shoreline traces of the Yellow River delta that I could measure some properties of to compare modeling results to...

Yellow River (Huanghe) 2016 survey plans

I’ll be departing soon for my second field campaign on the Yellow River, China. We traveled there around the same time last year to generate a dataset we cou...

Hiking Garmisch-Partenkirchen

I’m posting this in the off-chance it may help some future traveler who wants to find the same kind of day hike I did, so that he/she can enjoy it as much as...

TeXlive install process, or developing an intelligent download timer: Part 2

In part one of this series, I presented the download predictions for a program installation. The ultimate goal here, is to develop a method for accurately pr...

TeXlive install process, or developing an intelligent download timer: Part 1

I recently got a new laptop and during the process of setting up to my preferences, I install LaTeX through TeXlive. This means a massive download of many sm...

Gastroliths in the Morrison Fm

I’ve recently returned from a trip to New Mexico for the field methods class of which I am a TA. It was an awesome trip and great experience for me in teachi...

Google Opinion Rewards

Anyone who knows me, knows that I’m a Google fanboy. I don’t own any Apple products and will jump at any opportunity to tell anyone around me why Google is s...

History of the Houston Rodeo performances

The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo is one of Houston’s largest and most famous annual events. Now, I won’t claim to know much about the Houston Rodeo, heck...

Adding real data into GMT map, making a hillshade, and positioning

Alright, let’s get down to business plotting some real data on a map. Grab the zip file here, and uncompress it in the folder you want to build a map in. The...

Lal, 1991 in situ 10-Be production rates

10Be is a cosmogenic radioactive nuclide that is produced when high energy cosmic rays collide with nuclides and cause spallation. 10Be is produced in the at...

GSA abstract acceptance!

A little while ago, I heard back from the annual conference planners for Geological Society of America that my abstract submission was accepted for presentat...

One year of graduate school travel

The 24th of August 2015 marks my one year anniversary of beginning graduate school. It has been an awesome year, filled with new science, great friends, and ...

Back from China!

I’ve finally returned from China after a 6-week field campaign to get a first round look at my field location. We worked hard every single day after our gear...

May 2015 Houston flood

I’m posting to share a hydrograph from a channel in Houston to show how fast this flood happened, and why I think it may have left so many drivers stranded i...

Field Work — Mississippi Delta field trip

Well it’s been a while since I got back from Louisiana and our trip along the Mississippi River and delta so I figured I’d better post something. It’s been a...

Field Work — Mississippi River and delta trip, preparation

I’m off to Louisiana for a week to spend some time on the Mississippi River and MR delta with my advisor (who spent a lot of time researching there) and some...

Spotify tray icon in Ubuntu Ambiance after recent update

A recent update to Spotify for Linux (much needed, the program runs 90% flawlessly now!) broke the commonly used “fix” to the ugly tray icon that the default...

Field Work — TA on New Mexico Field Methods class trip

I spent my spring break with an outstanding group of undergrads TAing a course in geological field methods taught by Helge Gonnerman and Monica Erdman at Ric...

River hysteresis and plotting hysteresis data in R

Introduction

Making simple context maps with GMT

In this Generic Mapping Tools (GMT) tutorial, we will focus on two new things, 1) a different type of map projection and 2) a method to plot data on a map. T...

Be inspired while coding! — Matlab script

Here is a joke script I wrote a while ago that returns an inspirational quote when called. I made it as a joke to send to my lab group during a particularly ...

Discussion on flexural deformation of crust at passive margins

Recently in class, I led a discussion on the flexural deformation of the crust due to unloading of sediment from mountains, and the concomitant deposition of...

Writing scripts to build maps with the Generic Mapping Tools (GMT 5.1.x)

In the last tutorial, we made a simple map, which is what we’ll call “one layer”. What I mean by that is that the entire map was created with one command, an...

Quick script for connecting to University VPN

I can be pretty lazy at times, so much that I will go out of my way a bit to write a bit of code to simplify my life. I don’t often connect to my university’...

A brief introduction to the Generic Mapping Tools (GMT 5.1.x)

GMT operates on a UNIX style command line interface. If you don’t know what that means, that’s fine, I’m going to break it down for you here. Basically, it m...

Installing the Generic Mapping Tools 5 (GMT 5.1.x) on Ubuntu Linux

Pint glass short-pours

Have you ever gotten a short pour in your pint glass at the bar but not said anything? Well, after reading this, you may decide you want to say something nex...

Make desktop launcher for Matlab on Ubuntu

This brief tutorial will demonstrate how to make a .desktop file for Matlab on Ubuntu or another standard compliant desktop environment. Open up a terminal, ...

What can we learn from a hand sample?

Sometimes a geologist may question the value of a hand sample when compared to an entire outcrop or entire section, but there is absolutely value in hand sam...

Field Work — Island County, WA, Megabreccia

I’ve just returned from an 8-day trip to the state of Washington to serve as a field assistant to my colleague Brian Demet and participate in a class field-t...

Reddit data — When is it really too soon to retail Christmas?

About this time every year, people begin to complain about retail stores having Christmas themed displays and merchandise out. Well, speaking objectively, I ...

Manning and Favre: Career TD leaders

In honor of Peyton Manning becoming the second player in NFL history to throw more than 500 touchdown passes, I put together a little graphic to show how he ...

Field work — Wax Lake Delta

I was recently a participant on a field excursion with a crew out of the University of Texas to the Wax Lake Delta where they have ongoing projects. We simpl...

Reddit data — Graduate School talk

This is the first post in a series I’ll be doing about posting on Reddit for 2013. The posts in this series search through every single post made to Reddit i...

CFD file sizes

I’m presently taking a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) course here at Rice (taught by Dr. Tayfun E. Tezduyar), and I was shocked to learn the sheer volume...

Weathering of a theoretical cube

Another old assignment here, this one to model the erosion of a theoretical 1cm³ granitoid cube of a given initial composition and neatly present the results...

Google chrome profile fix (Ubuntu 14.04)

There was a period a number of months back where I had been getting this annoying error each time I opened Google Chrome about my profile failing to load. “Y...

Isotope fractionation and sugar fermentation

For my first post on this blog, I wanted to share an old project I did during my undergraduate at Lehigh University. The credit for the idea and design of th...

Andrew J. Moodie

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