Geospatial Analysis by Python and R: Geomorphology of the Philippine Trench, Pacific Ocean

Year 2019, Volume: 15 Issue: 3, 81 - 94, 30.12.2019

Polina Lemenkova

Abstract

The
study area is focused on the Philippine Trench, a hadal trench
located in the axe of the collision of the Philippine Sea Plate and
Sunda Plate, west Pacific Ocean. The research is aimed at the
analysis of the trench geomorphology by correlation between changes
in slope steepness and environmental variables. The methodology
consists in modelling data by statistical libraries of Python and R
programming languages. The results revealed that variations in the
slope steepness correlate with the sediment thickness across the
Philippine Trench. Variations in the landform are caused by a
combination of various factors that include geology, tectonic slab
dynamics and increasing depths in bathymetry. Algorithms of the
advanced machine learning and graph-based analysis applied for the
marine geological data set demonstrated in this research enabled to
gain insights into the seafloor geomorphology that can only be
accessible by remote sensing methods and modelling. Application of
the statistical methods of the data analysis by Python and R packages
has a broad applicability to similar research aimed at modelling
landform variations in the submarine geomorphology of the hadal
trenches.

Keywords

Philippine Trench, Python, R, computing, programming, Philippines, Pacific Ocean, geomorphology, geospatial analysis, statistical analysis, data modelling, oceanology

Supporting Institution

China Scholarship Council (CSC)

Project Number

2016SOA002

Thanks

This research was funded by the China Scholarship Council (CSC), State Oceanic Administration (SOA), Marine Scholarship of China, Grant Nr. 2016SOA002, Beijing, China (P.R.C.)

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