ARCHER2 Calendar June 2026

Electromagnetic waves propagation underground

Dr Sebastien Lemaire, EPCC, University of Edinburgh

* * * Winning Video and overall competition winning entry, ARCHER2 Image and Video Competition 2025 * * *

This video shows a gprMax simulation modelling the propagation of Electromagnetic fields coming from an above ground source into the earth. It models the interactions with the materials the fields come into contact with. The electric field (blue) is emitted at the surface, goes through the ground and interacts with a pair of perpendicular metallic pipes. These simulations enable the modelling of the return signature of subterranean structures, which have a variety of industry applications.

The simulation at the centre of the video uses an underlying grid of 750M cells and was run on 8 nodes using the UK national supercomputer ARCHER2. The data was then pre-processed using ParaView to export vdb files and perform a lossy data compression by discarding data points where the Electromagnetic field is negligible. Finally, the scene and all its components were designed and rendered using Blender.

This image was published on the June page of the ARCHER2 2026 printed calendar.