Visualization of geochemical data for rocks and sediments in Google Earth: Development of a data converter application for geochemical and isotopic data sets in database systems

Abstract

We developed a Keyhole Markup Language (KML) generator for converting geochemical and isotopic data sets for rocks and sediments stored in database systems into KML. Our program allows users to visualize geochemical or isotopic data easily in Google Earth. The generator accepts data files produced by the database systems PetDB, SedDB, GEOROC, and GANSEKI. The data are plotted three-dimensionally as a bar graph on the surface of the virtual Earth at the sampling site. This type of visual presentation, including information on sample localities, directly shows the distribution of isotopic or compositional anomalies of specific samples on the Earth's surface. We provide a Web application for the generator, so anyone can set the parameters for visualization over the Internet. With other KML generators we developed earlier, geochemical data can be overlain on a seismic tomographic model. This overlay image can provide information on the origin of samples in the tomographic model. Copyright 2011 by the American Geophysical Union.