GPlates and GPML: Open software and standards for

telling the Fortune of the World...

Backwards

www.gplates.org

Dietmar MüllerDietmar MüllerSchool of Geosciences and School of Geosciences and

University of Sydney Institute of Marine Science University of Sydney Institute of Marine Science (USIMS)(USIMS)

The University of SydneyThe University of Sydney

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Most of us have a “static” view of the Earth and nearly all geodata we store in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are associated with present-day coordinates only.

However, the most fundamental, large-scale process occurring in the Earth’s interior is convection of the mantle, responsible for the continual reshaping of the surface through plate tectonics

PLATE TECTONICSPLATE TECTONICS

’Everything’ on Earth is controlled by Plate

Tectonics Resources (hydrocarbons, minerals) Geothermal energy (mostly granites and active volcanism) Tourism (landscape, beaches, ocean) Climate past and present (distribution of continents and oceans) Agriculture (limestone, weathered basalt) Wine & beer (beer: magnesium limestone, terroir) Civil engineering (stability of slopes, tunnels, dams, hazards) Evolution of life and biodiversity (distribution of continents) Very important in planetary research

Oil & Gas

Tourism

Climate

Building Materials

WoodReligion/Politics

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Goals

Need open “plate tectonic GIS”: information model, database, reconstruction engine, visualisation, map making, web portal service

Create standard for interactive and web-based plate reconstr. Handle point, line, and gridded data Allow deformation of plates Interface plate reconstructions with

– GIS data bases– Paleogeographic map making module (GUI + scripting)– Geodynamic/paleoceanographic/-climate modelling

Open source (GPL) & cross-platform (Linux, OSX, Windows) (C++/OpenGL/wxWidgets)

How are we addressing our goals?

GPlates functionality:– Display point and line data on the globe– Rotate data according to Euler rotations– Animate the rotations over time

GPlates Highlights:– Portability (Linux, Unix, Windows, MacOS)– Open Source (licensed under the GPL)– Stable and robust– Active development community.

How are we addressing our goals?

User-friendliness a priority– Interactive interrogation/modification of data– Point-and-click oriented interface

• GUI is written using wxWidgets.• Data display done via OpenGL.

– Enabling researchers and students alike. Rotation of gridded data

– Attach grids to plates GPML (the GPlates Markup Language) is the native information model.

– http://www.geosci.usyd.edu.au/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=GPlatesGMLDev.GPlatesGMLDev Has recently been linked to the CitComS software

– To provide a set of closed plate polygons– To provide a plate velocity field as a boundary condition.

What areas of research will benefit from GPlates?

Plate Tectonic reconstructions Paleomagnetism (polar wander curves) Paleogeographic reconstructions Global geodynamics – model boundary constraints/validation Global climate modeling (GCM) boundary constraints/validation Provide constraints for basin modeling, sea level studies Plate margin tectonics (regional continental geology) Education

What are some examples of data we want to play with in

GPlates?Point Data Line Data Grid Data

Stress maps Plate boundaries TopographyMagnetic anomaly picks

Magnetic/tectonic lineations

Crustal/sediment thickness

GPS Velocities Coastlines GravityHotspots COBs MagneticsPoint histories LIPs Crustal ageHeatflow Fracture zones Ice thicknessRock samples Isochrons GeoidWell locations Contours Remotely sensed

imagesPaleomagnetics Dikes

What’s the holdup to implement GPML?

Need straightforward way to turn UML into GML schema

Need open source GML3.1 compliant parser (there isn’t one yet) (use Xerxes for now)

Parser needs to be written in C or C++ - why? Because we need it both for web feature serving (ErathByte ande Chronos portal) as well as bundling with interoperable software (ie GPlates)

Age of the ocean basins and continental paleogeography through time - outlines

dynamic plate boundaries

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We talk the talk, but do we walk the walk? Judge for yourself:

Key international connectionsNorwegian Geological Survey/Trondheim (Trond Torsvik)Caltech GeoFramework (Mike Gurnis)Comp. Infrastructure for Geodynamics (CIG) (Mike Gurnis)

CHRONOS

11stst GPlates Project Workshop GPlates Project Workshop NGU/Trondheim 19/09-23/09 2002NGU/Trondheim 19/09-23/09 2002

Recent CHRONOS workshop, co-chaired by Müller and Cervato (CHRONOS manager) at EGU meeting in Vienna (March 2005)

Identified a global group of “Power users” to lead an effort of minimal standardization required for a web/grid-based system of plate reconstructions linked to modelling efforts

NSF is keen to provide funding for US-based node

EarthByte e-research pilot proposal

Prototype EarthByte software and database system aims to connect the open source and architecture-independent GPlates (Müller et al., 2005) and GMT (Generic Mapping Tools) software (Wessel and Smith, 1991) into a unified software system embedded in the APAC Geoscience Grid infrastructure, and to implement GML-based service interfaces and databases

Paul Wessel (Univ. Hawaii primary GMT architect) is on a 1-year sabbatical at Sydney Univ. from June 2005-July 2006.

EarthByte e-research pilot proposal member

institutions

EarthByteEarthByte Partners Partners

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EarthByteEarthByte System System

GPlates map making module (based on GMT software), interactive or scripting-based

Geodynamic/paleoclimate modelling applications

Plate Tectonic GIS

Interactive manipulationof plate models

Data to plate encoder via global plate polygon file to GPML

Also need to design Gplates database

Pilot study for a project on global sedimentary basin analysis

Have experimented with PostgreSQL/PostGISPython scripts to access database and generate

GMT readable files for data processing and plotting

SQL database (PostGIS)SQL database (PostGIS)

query basins which are not member of Sedbac project

query basin classification

query basin polygon configuration

Python - ExampleAccesses SQL databaseextracts polygonsparses data to desired output format (ascii xy, GPML/XML)

QGIS / GISQGIS / GIS

Used to display and interrogate SQL database

(graphical frontend)

Used to display and interrogate SQL database

(graphical frontend)

OpenDX visualization of CitcomS mantle convection simulation

Depends on interoperability between plate tectonic GIS, plate kinematic model, 3D parallel convection code and visualization tool

From Mike Gurnis (2005)

Dynamic surface topography due to vertical component of mantle convection, Jurassic to

present

Depends on interoperability between plate kinematic model, 3D convection code, and visualization via GMT software

Modeling flow of deep water currents

Currently no tools exist to create paleo-depth maps for oceans to properly constrain deep water flow in paleoceanographic models

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Challenges Standard information model development

– GPlates Markup Language - GPML - still in its infancy– Geological timescale model (S. Cox, CHRONOS) - relatively advanced

Embedding of gridded data into GPML - platform independent binary encodings essential (netcdf - based on CSML?)

Design and “populate” data base (import legacy data) Link data to variety of dynamic modelling tools - workflow issues:

– Make data available based on standard info model– Extract data need for model boundary conditions and transform the data into a suitable

form required for providing model constraints– Benchmark and execute model– Visualize model outputs with constraining data superimposed

Need to satisfy requirements of web services, workflow (data-model connection) and standalone application

Where can I get a copy of GPlates?

From our webpage:– http://www.gplates.org

GPlates0.7 will be released in November Join the mailing list to be notified of future releases