Visualization of Paleocurrents on a Web Application Using GPlates

Author

Anjan Sapkota, Southern Adventist UniversityFollow

Mentor

Germán Harvey Alférez Salinas, Ph.D.

Date of Award

Winter 12-3-2024

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Computer Science

First Advisor

Germán Harvey Alférez Salinas, Ph.D.

Second Advisor

Arthur Chadwick, Ph.D.

Third Advisor

Ronald Nalin, Ph.D.

Fourth Advisor

Richard Halterman, Ph.D.

Abstract

Paleocurrents are flow directions derived from features of sedimentary rocks that reveal the direction of the current of wind or water that deposited the sediment. In 2015, Brand et al. created a global database of paleocurrents, which contains over 1,000,000 measurements worldwide: North America, South America, Australia, Great Britain, parts of Western Europe, China, Africa are fairly well represented; Antarctica, Eastern Europe, and Asia are modestly represented and Russia is poorly represented. The contribution of this thesis is a web application that uses the GPlates’ Application Programming Interface (API) to visualize global paleocurrents through time in an interactive way based on the data collected by Brand et al. This web application is publicly available and features a three-dimensional (3D) Earth view using three.js, allowing users to explore the paleocurrent data from different perspectives on the patterns and the distribution across the different regions of the world. The interface enables users to interact with the visualization, inspect complete details about each data record, and look up more information about them on the Internet with simple clicks, allowing a deeper exploration throughout various stratigraphic levels.

Comments

The web application for data visualization is available online here.

Recommended Citation

Sapkota, Anjan, "Visualization of Paleocurrents on a Web Application Using GPlates" (2024). MS in Computer Science Theses. 3.
https://knowledge.e.southern.edu/mscs_theses/3