STRATDATAPLOT: A DATABASE FOR MANAGEMENT AND ANALYSIS OF STRATIGRAPHIC DATA
The fundamental unit for a stratigraphic analysis is the description of an outcrop or core section. Often this stratigraphic information is plotted “manually” using vector graphics editors (e.g., Corel Draw, Illustrator). However, this information although store on a digital format, cannot be used readily for any quantitative analysis, and any quantitative examination of the stratigraphic data necessarily takes further steps. We decide to follow a different approach by developing a relation database using MySQL to store stratigraphic data. This database was designed to store the diverse characteristics recorded on a stratigraphic description (e.g. fossil content, lithology, number of samples collected in a specific interval, sedimentary structures and information from previous bioestratigraphic, geochronological and/or geochemical analysis, among many others). StratDataPlot reads the information from the database, and draws a stratigraphic column allowing the user to select one or multiple fields stored in the database. Additionally StratDataPlot includes quantitative analysis tools to enable the user to quantify stratigraphic information (e.g. grain size, sorting and rounding, proportion sand/shale). Lastly, since this program is written in a widely-used, open-source, high-level computer programming language “R graphics/statistics language”, it is already loaded with many of the crucial features required to accomplish basic and complex tasks of statistical analysis (e.g., R language provide more than fifty spatial libraries that allow users to explore various Geostatistics and spatial analysis). This new tool allows a deeper exploration of the stratigraphic data collected in the field.