getting started in alphaMELTS

[pzanders4]

This may be a very basic question for the melts community, but i am new to alphaMELTS and am having issues getting it to run and produce a coherent melting experiment. I create my new .melts file with my desired composition, set the f0 and other variables via the command options, but it spits out one number at a seemingly random temperature when i execute. I set the new temp ranges in the .melts file and am keeping the pressure constant. Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Is there another file i need to write to accompany the .melts file, so that the program knows what to do, or did i just miss something very basic?

thank you

Peter

[Paula]

Hi Peter,

Yes, there is another file, referred to as the settings_file in the documentation (but the actual file name can be whatever you want). alphaMELTS needs that in addition to a .melts file.

Also, how are you starting alphaMELTS? You can double click the run_alphamelts.command but not the executable. If you double click the alphamelts executable, the program will always have the default settings - pMELTS, isentropic, DELTAP +1000 bars (from memory; look at the alphamelts_default_env.txt file that came with your installation for a full list). Also, by default the temperature output is in Kelvin.

When you start run_alphamelts.command, you can specify the settings_file by typing '-f ', followed by the file name. There is more information about how to do this in the two alphaMELTS versions of the tutorial:

http://magmasource.caltech.edu/forum/index.php/board,12.0.html

For melting calculations I would start with the example isentropic_melt_env.txt file and modify it to suit your needs. Unless you choise a different location during installation, the examples file will be in a folder called 'examples' within the folder you downloaded from the alphaMELTS site.

Hope that helps. Let me know if you have any more queries.

Paula