References

Geoscientific Instrumentation, Methods and Data Systems

Geosci. Instrum. Method. Data Syst.

2193-0864

Copernicus Publications

Göttingen, Germany

10.5194/gi-1-111-2012

The GPlates Geological Information Model and Markup Language

Qin

¹ Müller

R. D.

¹ Cannon

¹ Landgrebe

T. C. W.

¹ Heine

¹ Watson

R. J.

² Turner

EarthByte Group, School of Geosciences, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia

Geodynamics Team, Geological Survey of Norway, P.O. Box 6315, Sluppen, 7491 Trondheim, Norway

Seismological Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA

08 10 2012

1 2 111 134

2012

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

This article is available from https://gi.copernicus.org/articles/1/111/2012/gi-1-111-2012.html

The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://gi.copernicus.org/articles/1/111/2012/gi-1-111-2012.pdf

Understanding tectonic and geodynamic processes leading to the present-day configuration of the Earth involves studying data and models across a variety of disciplines, from geochemistry, geochronology and geophysics, to plate kinematics and mantle dynamics. All these data represent a 3-D spatial and 1-D temporal framework, a formalism which is not exploited by traditional spatial analysis tools. This is arguably a fundamental limit in both the rigour and sophistication in which datasets can be combined for geological deep time analysis, and often confines the extent of data analyses to the present-day configurations of geological objects. The GPlates Geological Information Model (GPGIM) represents a formal specification of geological and geophysical data in a time-varying plate tectonics context, used by the GPlates virtual-globe software. It provides a framework in which relevant types of geological data are attached to a common plate tectonic reference frame, allowing the data to be reconstructed in a time-dependent spatio-temporal plate reference frame. The GPlates Markup Language (GPML), being an extension of the open standard Geography Markup Language (GML), is both the modelling language for the GPGIM and an XML-based data format for the interoperable storage and exchange of data modelled by it. The GPlates software implements the GPGIM allowing researchers to query, visualise, reconstruct and analyse a rich set of geological data including numerical raster data. The GPGIM has recently been extended to support time-dependent geo-referenced numerical raster data by wrapping GML primitives into the time-dependent framework of the GPGIM. Coupled with GPlates' ability to reconstruct numerical raster data and import/export from/to a variety of raster file formats, as well as its handling of time-dependent plate boundary topologies, interoperability with geodynamic softwares is established, leading to a new generation of deep-time spatio-temporal data analysis and modelling, including a variety of new functionalities, such as 4-D data-mining.

References 1

Abadi, M., Cardelli, L., Pierce, B. C., and Rémy, D.: Dynamic typing in polymorphic languages, J. Funct. Programm., 5, 111–130, 1995.

Boag, S., Chamberlin, D., Fernández, M. F., Florescu, D., Robie, J. and Siméon, J. (Eds.): XQuery 1.0: An XML query language, 2nd Edn., W3C Recommendation, available from: <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xquery/">http://www.w3.org/TR/xquery/</a> (last access: 5 October 2012), 2010.

Bonham-Carter, G.: Geographic information systems for geoscientists: modelling with GIS, Pergamon Press, 1994.

Bordwell, S.: dBASE II – Library use of a microcomputer database management system, Program: electronic library and information systems, MCB UP Ltd, 18, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/eb046876">https://doi.org/10.1108/eb046876</a>, 157–165, 1984.

Boyden, J. A., Müller, R. D., Gurnis, M., Torsvik, T. H., Clark, J. A., Turner, M., Ivey-Law, H., Watson, R. J., and Cannon, J. S.: Next-generation plate-tectonic reconstructions using GPlates, in: Geoinformatics: Cyberinfrastructure for the Solid Earth Sciences, edited by: Keller, G. R. and Baru, C., Cambridge University Press, 2011.

Bray, T., Paoli, J., Sperberg-McQueen, C. M., Maler, E., and Yergeau, F.: Extensible markup language (XML), World Wide Web J., 2, 27–66, 1997.

Cox, A. and Hart, B. R.: Plate Tectonics: How It Works, Blackwell Science Inc., 400 pp., 1986.

Demsar, J., Zupan, B., Leban, G., and Curk, T.: Orange: From experimental machine learning to interactive data mining, European Conference on Machine Learning and Principles and Practice of Knowledge Discovery in Databases, Pisa, Italy, 2004.

ESRI: ESRI Shapefile Technical Description, available from: <a href="http://www.esri.com/library/whitepapers/pdfs/shapefile.pdf">http://www.esri.com/library/whitepapers/pdfs/shapefile.pdf</a> (last access 8 May 2012), 1998.

Euler, L. and Sten, J.: Euler's original text (in Latin) and English translation, available from: <a href="http://www.17centurymaths.com/contents/euler/e478tr.pdf">http://www.17centurymaths.com/contents/euler/e478tr.pdf</a>, last access: 8 May 2012.

Geraci, A., Katki, F., McMonegal, L., Meyer, B., Lane, J., Wilson, P., Radatz, J., Yee, M., Porteous, H., and Springsteel, F.: IEEE Standard Computer Dictionary: Compilation of IEEE Standard Computer Glossaries, IEEE Press Piscataway, NJ, USA , 1991.

Greiner, B.: Euler rotations in plate-tectonic reconstructions, Comput. Geosci., 25, 209–216, 1999.

Gurnis, M., Turner, M., Zahirovic, S., Dicaprio, L., Spasojevich, S., Muller, R. D., Boyden, J., Seton, M., Manea, V. C., and Bower, D. J.: Plate Tectonic Reconstructions with Continuously Closing Plates, Comput. Geosci., 38, 35–42, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cageo.2011.04.014">https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cageo.2011.04.014</a>, 2012.

Heim, M.: Exploring Indiana Highways: Trip Trivia, Exploring America's Highway, Travel Organization Network Exchange, Inc., Wabasha, 2007.

Hellinger, S. J.: The uncertainties of finite rotations in plate tectonics, J. Geophys. Res., 86, 9312–9318, 1981.

ISO 19101: Geographic information – Reference model, 2002.

ISO 19123: Geographic information – Schema for coverage geometry and functions, 2005.

Lake, R.: The application of geography markup language (GML) to the geological sciences, Comput. Geosci., 31, 1081–1094, 2005.

Landgrebe, T. C. W. and Muller, R. D.: A Spatio-Temporal Knowledge-Discovery Platform for Earth-Science Data, Digital Image Computing Techniques and Applications (DICTA), 2011 International Conference on 6–8 December 2011, Noosa, QLD, Australia, 394–399, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/DICTA.2011.73">https://doi.org/10.1109/DICTA.2011.73</a>, 2011.

Larman, C.: Applying UML and patterns: an introduction to object-oriented analysis and design and iterative development, Prentice Hall PTR, 2004.

Lee, Y. T.: Information modeling: From design to implementation, available from: <a href="http://www.mel.nist.gov/msidlibrary/doc/tina99im.pdf">http://www.mel.nist.gov/msidlibrary/doc/tina99im.pdf</a> (last access: 29 June 2012), 1999.

Müller, R. D., Sdrolias, M., Gaina, C., and Roest, W. R.: Age, spreading rates and spreading asymmetry of the world's ocean crust, Geochem. Geophy. Geosy., 9, Q04006, https://doi.org/04010.01029/02007GC001743 2008.

OGC: Network Common Data Form (NetCDF) Core Encoding Standard version 1.0, available from: <a href="http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/netcdf">http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/netcdf</a> (last access: 6 September 2012), 2010.

Peng, Z. R. and Zhang, C.: The roles of geography markup language (GML), scalable vector graphics (SVG), and Web feature service (WFS) specifications in the development of Internet geographic information systems (GIS), J. Geogr. Syst., 6, 95–116, 2004.

Portele, C. (Ed.): Geography Markup Language (GML) Encoding Standard v3.2, OGC Implementation Standard, OGC document 07-036, <a href="http://www.opengis.net/doc/gml">http://www.opengis.net/doc/gml</a>, last access: 5 October 2012, also published as ISO 19136:2007, 2007.

Sen, M. and Duffy, T.: GeoSciML: Development of a generic GeoScience Markup Language, Comput. Geosci., 31, 1095–1103, 2005.

Simons, B., Boisvert, E., Brodaric, B., Cox, S., Duffy, T. R., Johnson, B. R., Laxton, J. L., and Richard, S.: GeoSciML: enabling the exchange of geological map data, ASEG Extended Abstracts, CSIRO Publishing, Collingwood, Victoria, Australia, 1–4, 2006.

Tan, E., Leng, W., Zhong, S., and Gurnis, M.: CitcomS v3.0 – A compressible thermo-chemical mantle convection code, 01, American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2007, abstract #DI14A-01, 2007.

Vretanos, P. A. (Ed.): Web feature service (WFS) implementation specification, OGC document 04-094, available from: <a href="http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/wfs/">http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/wfs/</a> (last access: 5 October 2012), 2005.

Wessel, P. and Smith, W. H. F.: New, improved version of Generic Mapping Tools released, EOS Trans. AGU, 579, 1998.

Wessel, P.: Seamounts, Geology, in: Encyclopedia of Islands, edited by: Clague, D. A. and Gillespie, R., UC Press, Berkeley, CA, 821–825, 2009.

Williams, S. E., Muller, R. D., Landgrebe, T. C. W., and Whittaker, J. M.: An open-source software environment for visualizing and refining plate tectonic reconstructions using high-resolution geological and geophysical data sets, also available from: <a href="http://www.geosociety.org/gsatoday/archive/22/4/article/i1052-5173-22-4-4.htm">http://www.geosociety.org/gsatoday/archive/22/4/article/i1052-5173-22-4-4.htm</a>, last access: 5 October 2012, GSA Today, 22, 4–9, 2012.

Zalta, E. N. (Ed.): Stanford encyclopaedia of philosophy, Stanford University, The Metaphysics Research Lab, available from: <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-relative/">http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-relative/</a> (last access: 6 September 2012), 2003.