In support of ongoing research in the  Department of Geology and Environmental Science at the University of Pittsburgh,  Petroleum Experts Limited (Petex) again donated the MOVE suite of software, valued at $2,764,444, to the department. MOVE is kinematic software that allows users to either remove deformation and resemble stratigraphy to its undeformed state,  or sequentially deform strata to illustrate how faults and folds develop with time.  The MOVE suite provides the complete range of tools to build, balance, restore and analyse cross-sections at a local and regional scale as well as build detailed and complex 3-D models linking surface and subsurface geology and geometry. In addition, the suite contains has modules that facilitate isostatic, fracture and fault response modelling, as well as fault, stress and isostatic response analysis.  Professor Nadine McQuarrie and her group use MOVE to create sequentially forward modeled cross-sections of orogen scale fold and thrust belt systems in the Bolivian and Peruvian Andes, the Bhutan, Nepal and Indian Himalayas, and Taiwan to explore the relationship between the geometry of faults, their rate and age and the cooling history of rocks as expressed in mineral cooling ages.  

The MOVE suite is also currently used in two courses,  undergraduate Structural Geology (GEOL 1100) and the graduate course Basin Analyses (GEOL 2120).    The department greatly appreciates the opportunity Petex provided its students and faculty to work with the MOVE software suite.