Plotting Ternary Diagrams by R Library ggtern for Geological Modelling

Year 2019, Volume: 5 Issue: 2, 16 - 25, 15.12.2019

Polina Lemenkova

Abstract

Data
modelling and visualization are interdependent parallel research
methods in Earth sciences critical to the proper understanding of the
geological phenomena: processes, structure and dynamics. Various
approaches of data analysis provided by R programming language
satisfy goal of the geodata processing. Selected way of data
representation and analysis of the factors provided by
ternary diagrams is important way of data visualization and modelling
in applied geology. Visualizing geological variables by ternaries
enables to highlight, which factors are dependent on and affect
others causing variations in the system. Sediment thickness, location
on certain tectonic plates, closeness of the volcanic areas,
steepness and depths are the geologic, tectonic and geomorphic
variables tested using R based modelling in {ggtern} library.
Visualizing attributes as a
three-component interrelation by triangular plots gives an insight to
the geological properties of the system. Traditional techniques for
visualization of pairwise linear correlations between two factors on
the plots fail to recognize triple variations of the factors within
the system. The approach proposed by ternaries identify and handle
data correlations by triple factors. Other graphical models include
circular plot and Euler-Venn diagram showing quantitative and
qualitative geospatial data modelling.

Keywords

ternary diagrams, geologic modelling, R programming, ggtern library, data analysis, machine learning

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