Overview

SeisFlows is a Python-based package for automating waveform inversion. With a user base in both academia and industry, SeisFlows has been used for:

  • production scale inversions (some with over a billion model parameters),

  • research problems related to oil and gas exploration,

  • regional-scale earthquake-based adjoint tomography problems,

  • general nonlinear optimization problems.

Why use SeisFlows?

SeisFlows is meant to reduce the “human-time” cost of performing a seismic inversion. It replaces the typical hodgepodge of Bash, Python or Matlab scripts Users inevitably write to run a seismic inversion on a supercomputer.

In addition, it is open-source, community-driven and has been used in published studies.

How does it work?

With only a parameter file, a User can type a single command on an HPC terminal and launch an automated inversion workflow onto their cluster. Under the hood, a main job acts on behalf of the User: submitting simulations, monitoring the job queue, managing the filesystem, and generating results.

SeisFlows is built upon the object-oriented programming concept of inheritance. Architecturally, SeisFlows hides case-by-base details behind a generalized namespace such that a workflow can remain consistent whether applied to a 2D acoustic problem on a Linux workstation, or to a continental-scale adjoint tomography problem run on a high performance computer.

Thanks to inheritance, if desired functionality is missing in the package, new users can overload default classes without having to rewrite entire portions of the code base, allowing SeisFlows to maintain a rigid structure while still being flexible in its application to various scales and problems.

What does SeisFlows not do?

SeisFlows is not a numerical solver, not a waveform processing tool, and not a visualization tool. Knowledge of interfacing with external numerical solvers, as well as waveform preprocessing tools, is paramount to successful application of SeisFlows.

How do I use SeisFlows?

Check out the Getting Started page to learn how to run an example problem, understand a SeisFlows working directory and set up SeisFlows for your own research problems.

What is SeisFlows Legacy?

SeisFlows Legacy is the name given to the initial Python2 release of the codebase. The current version of SeisFlows has seen a number of backwards-incompatible changes from this initial version.

For Users who used SeisFlows prior to these updates, note that major backwards-incompatible changes from the legacy codebase include:

  • complete shift to Python>=3.7 source code, abandoning Python2 support

  • reworking of internal code architecture to be more ‘Pythonic’ and modular

  • richer source code emphasizing readability and PEP-8 standards

  • a new command line tool for improved package control

  • redesigned, dynamically-generated parameter file

See the change log for point-by-point changes from the original codebase. The Legacy SeisFlows codebase can still be accessed along with its documentation, but is no longer supported by the developers.