Technical note: T c 1D – a 1D thermal and thermochronometer age prediction model

Abstract. Thermochronological data are commonly used to study the activity of geological processes over timescales of millions of years. Ages produced by thermochronological measurements, however, are non-unique and do not directly record rates of processes, which has led to the development of a variety of software tools for interpreting age data in the context of geological processes. Most of the widely used software packages focus on determining thermal histories, which are easy to use but do not provide direct quantitative estimates of geological process rates. In contrast, more sophisticated and complex thermo-kinematic modeling software can link ages to process rates but may require greater computational expertise and resources for use. Here we introduce Tc1D, a 1D thermal and thermochronometer age prediction software package designed to provide users with the opportunity to explore geological processes from thermochronology data in a computationally efficient and accessible framework. The software is open source and written in the Python programming language, and provides functionality for forward and inverse modeling of thermochronometer data, visualization using built-in plotting, a variety of options for defining exhumation histories, and more. This work presents an overview of how Tc1D was designed, several illustrative examples of how the code can be applied, instructions for how to get started using Tc1D, and some plans for future development.