A parallel laboratory for simulation and visualization of seismic wavefields

The use of parallel computers makes simulation of elastic waves feasible th roughout large structures by means of recent advances in domain decompositi on methods. We introduce a competitive parallel algorithm for the propagati on of elastic waves in complex heterogeneous media using finite-element dis cretization. This parallel method, called the multiblock method, performs m ore efficiently than classical domain decomposition techniques based on sub structuration, such as the Schur complement technique. It reduces considera bly the amount of communication amongst processors because the interface pr oblem between subdomains is solved by taking advantage of Huygens' principl e for wave propagation. We provide some numerical examples and detailed stu dies on the efficiency and performance of the algorithm, proving that it is competitive and less costly, from the computational viewpoint, than algori thms based on the Schur technique.