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Open source visualization of GPS displacements for earthquake cycle physics

Thursday, November 10, 2016


The Earth s surface is moving, ever so slightly, all the time. This slow, small, b
ut persistent movement of the Earth's crust is responsible for the formation of
mountain ranges, sudden earthquakes, and even the positions of the continents. S
cientists around the world measure these almost imperceptible movements using ar
rays of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receivers to better understand
all phases of an earthquake cycle both how the surface responds after an earthqua
ke, and the storage of strain energy between earthquakes.
To help researchers explore this data and better understand the Earthquake cycle
, we are releasing a new, interactive data visualization which draws geodetic ve
locity lines on top of a relief map by amplifying position estimates relative to
their true positions. Unlike existing approaches, which focus on small time sli
ces or individual stations, our visualization can show all the data for a whole
array of stations at once. Open sourced under an Apache 2 license, and available
on GitHub, this visualization technique is a collaboration between Harvard s Depa
rtment of Earth and Planetary Sciences and Google's Machine Perception and Big P
icture teams.
Our approach helps scientists quickly assess deformations across all phases of t
he earthquake cycle both during earthquakes (coseismic) and the time between (inte
rseismic). For example, we can see azimuth (direction) reversals of stations as
they relate to topographic structures and active faults. Digging into these move
ments will help scientists vet their models and their data, both of which are cr
ucial for developing accurate computer representations that may help predict fut
ure earthquakes.
Classical approaches to visualizing these data have fallen into two general cate
gories: 1) a map view of velocity/displacement vectors over a fixed time interva
l and 2) time versus position plots of each GNSS component (longitude, latitude
and altitude).
Examples of classical approaches. On the left is a map view showing average velo
city vectors over the period from 1997 to 2001[1]. On the right you can see a ti
me versus eastward (longitudinal) position plot for a single station.
Each of these approaches have proved to be informative ways to understand the sp
atial distribution of crustal movements and the time evolution of solid earth de
formation. However, because geodetic shifts happen in almost imperceptible dista
nces (mm) and over long timescales, both approaches can only show a small subset
of the data at any time a condensed average velocity per station, or a detailed v
iew of a single station, respectively. Our visualization enables a scientist to
see all the data at once, then interactively drill down to a specific subset of
interest.
Our visualization approach is straightforward; by magnifying the daily longitude
and latitude position changes, we show tracks of the evolution of the position
of each station. These magnified position tracks are shown as trails on top of a
shaded relief topography to provide a sense of position evolution in geographic
context.
To see how it works in practice, let s step through an an example. Consider this t
iny set of longitude/latitude pairs for a single GNSS station, with the differin
g digits shown in bold:
Day Index
Longitude
Latitude
0
139.06990407
34.949757897
1
139.06990400
34.949757882
2
139.06990413
34.949757941
3
139.06990409
34.949757921
4
139.06990413
34.949757904
If we were to draw line segments between these points directly on a map, they d be
much too small to see at any reasonable scale. So we take these minute differen
ces and multiply them by a user-controlled scaling factor. By default this facto
r is 105.5 (about 316,000x).

To help the user identify which end is the start of the line, we give the start
and end points different colors and interpolate between them. Blue and red are t
he default colors, but they re user-configurable. Although day-to-day movement of
stations may seem erratic, by using this method, one can make out a general tren
d in the relative motion of a station.
Close-up of a single station s movement during the three year period from 2003 to
2006.
However, static renderings of this sort suffer from the same problem that veloci
ty vector images do; in regions with a high density of GNSS stations, tracks ove
rlap significantly with one another, obscuring details. To solve this problem, o
ur visualization lets the user interactively control the time range of interest,
the amount of amplification and other settings. In addition, by animating the l
ines from start to finish, the user gets a real sense of motion that s difficult t
o achieve in a static image.
We ve applied our new visualization to the ~20 years of data from the GEONET array
in Japan. Through it, we can see small but coherent changes in direction before
and after the great 2011 Tohoku earthquake.
GPS data sets (in .json format) for both the GEONET data in Japan and the Plate
Boundary Observatory (PBO) data in the western US are available at earthquake.rc
.fas.harvard.edu.
This short animation shows many of the visualization s interactive features. In or
der:
Modifying the multiplier adjusts how significantly the movements are magnified.
We can adjust the time slider nubs to select a particular time range of interest
.
Using the map controls provided by the Google Maps JavaScript API, we can zoom i
nto a tiny region of the map.
By enabling map markers, we can see information about individual GNSS stations.
By focusing on a stations of interest, we can even see curvature changes in the
time periods before and after the event.
Station designated 960601 of Japan s GEONET array is located on the island of Miku
ra-jima. Here we see the period from 2006 to 2012, with movement magnified 105.1
times (126,000x).
To achieve fast rendering of the line segments, we created a custom overlay usin
g THREE.js to render the lines in WebGL. Data for the GNSS stations is passed to
the GPU in a data texture, which allows our vertex shader to position each poin
t on-screen dynamically based on user settings and animation.
We re excited to continue this productive collaboration between Harvard and Google
as we explore opportunities for groundbreaking, new earthquake visualizations.
If you d like to try out the visualization yourself, follow the instructions at ea
rthquake.rc.fas.harvard.edu. It will walk you through the setup steps, including
how to download the available data sets. If you d like to report issues, great! P
lease submit them through the GitHub project page.
Acknowledgments
We wish to thank Bill Freeman, a researcher on Machine Perception, who hatched t
he idea and developed the initial prototypes, and Fernanda Vigas and Martin Watte
nberg of the Big Picture Team for their visualization design guidance.
References
[1] Loveless, J. P., and Meade, B. J. (2010). Geodetic imaging of plate motions,
slip rates, and partitioning of deformation in Japan, Journal of Geophysical Re
search.
By Jimbo Wilson, Software Engineer, Big Picture Team and Brendan Meade, Professo
r, Harvard Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences

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