Visualizations of Earth Process for the American Museum of Natural History

The American Museum of Natural History in New York City has built a new exhibit space—The Hall of Planet Earth. This hall highlights earth processes using various exhibits including actual rocks and core samples, demonstration models, and video display stations. One specific scientific area that the museum wants to highlight is that of modeling and simulation. Los Alamos has a long history in this area through our involvement in programs such as the DOE Grand Challenges and the Institute for Geophysics and Planetary Physics. Because of this, we were asked to participate in the design of, and provide content for, five exhibits designed to showcase modeling and simulation of individual earth processes. This paper briefly describes the scientific visualizations developed and used to model atmosphere, ocean, and mantle processes for the American Museum of Natural History’s exhibit.