  One approach to achieving correct finite element assembly is to ensure that
the local orientation of facets relative to each cell in the mesh is consistent
with the global orientation of that facet. Rognes et al. have shown how to
achieve this for any mesh composed of simplex elements, and deal.II contains a
serial algorithm to construct a consistent orientation of any quadrilateral
mesh of an orientable manifold.
  The core contribution of this paper is the extension of this algorithm for
distributed memory parallel computers, which facilitates its seamless
application as part of a parallel simulation system.
  Furthermore, our analysis establishes a link between the well-known
Union-Find algorithm and the construction of a consistent orientation of a
quadrilateral mesh. As a result, existing work on the parallelisation of the
Union-Find algorithm can be easily adapted to construct further parallel
algorithms for mesh orientations.
