Course Elective 26 - Advanced GMT Methods

Staff involved:

Dr Maria Seton and Prof Dietmar Mueller (The University of Sydney).

Background:

The geoscientific community faces a data explosion. To process, vizualize and analyse spatial data, scientists have designed their own public domain tools. Generic Mapping Tools (GMT) is particularly well equipped to process and display 2 ad 3D georeferenced and non-georeferenced data. GMT has become a standard tool for geochemists, geophysicists and geologists with over 10,000 registered users worldwide.

Module Objectives

This course is designed to build upon the knowledge obtained in the Introductory GMT Course (SUCOGG Elective 23) to perform more advanced data processing and plotting. The course will involve processing, visualising and analysing marine geophysical data, including bathymetry, gravity and magnetic data to understand the tectonic evolution and crustal structure of a region. The study area that the students will investigate will be of their choosing.

Format, duration and timing

The course will run over 4 days from 9am-4pm. The first day will be an introductory session. The students will work independently on their reports for the following 3 days. The course will be run from 15-18 June, 2009 but students may take this course later in the year provided they have prior approval from the course coordinators.

Assumed Knowledge

The course is targeted towards honours (fourth year) students with a background in geosciences and experience in GMT. Students must have taken the Introductory GMT Course (SUCOGG Elective 23) or to have previous experience in using GMT.

Reference Material

It is recommended that you download the GMT Technical Reference and Cookbook from the GMT website:
http://gmt.soest.hawaii.edu/gmt/doc/html/GMT_Docs/GMT_Docs.html.

Assessment

Assessment will be via a 6 page report (including figures) which is to be handed in at the end of the course.

Module contact persons and coordinators:

• Dr M. Seton
  School of Geosciences, Earthbyte Research Group
  The University of Sydney,
  NSW 2006, Australia
  Phone: +61 2 9351 4255
  Fax: 61 2 9351 0184
  E-mail: maria.seton@usyd.edu.au



• Prof. D. Mueller
  School of Geosciences, Earthbyte Research Group
  The University of Sydney,
  NSW 2006, Australia
  Phone: +61 2 9351 4253
  Fax: 61 2 9351 0184
  E-mail: d.muller@usyd.edu.au