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A tectonic geodesy mapping software based on QGIS

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Geodesy and Geodynamics

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A tectonic geodesy mapping software based on QGIS

Zhe Fang a, Guoyan Jiang b, Caijun Xu a, c, d, *, Shuai Wang a
a
School of Geodesy and Geomatics, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430079, China
b
Earth System Science Programme, Faculty of Science, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
c
Key Laboratory of Geospace Environment and Geodesy, Ministry of Education, Wuhan, 430079, China
d
Key Laboratory of Geophysical Geodesy, Ministry of Natural Resources, Wuhan, 430079, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: To overcome the high cost of learning, non-visual operation, and cumbersome steps of fine-tuning map
Received 20 December 2018 elements in Generic Mapping Tools (GMT) and other geoscience mapping softwares, we present the
Accepted 15 August 2019 Tectonic Geodesy Application (TGA), a user-friendly 64-bit tectonic geodesy mapping software based on
Available online xxx
the secondary development interface of the open source geographic information system QGIS. In this
paper, we detailly introduce the architecture and function modules of our software, and highlight the
Keywords:
functions of rendering and map decoration through four cases: the geologic map of Papua New Guinea,
QGIS
the seismicity in China and surrounding regions, the seismicity and crustal deformation of the Tibetan
Tectonic geodesy
Interactive mapping system
Plateau and the coseismic deformation of the 2017 Jiuzhaigou earthquake in China. Compared with GMT,
the tectonic geodesy mapping software we developed has the advantages of simple operation, low
learning cost and user-friendly interface.
© 2019 Institute of Seismology, China Earthquake Administration, etc. Production and hosting by Elsevier
B.V. on behalf of KeAi Communications Co., Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND
license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

1. Introduction
Tectonic geodesy is an interdisciplinary field that studies the
tectonic activity of the crust and its fundamental kinematics and
dynamics mechanisms using geodetic observation techniques,
such as Global Positioning System (GPS), Interferometric Syn-
thetic Aperture Rader (InSAR) and gravity [1e7]. Yin et al. [8]
estimated the gravity changes caused by crustal deformation
using horizontal GPS velocities of the Tibetan Plateau and
concluded that a significant mass accumulation process may be
occurring beneath the crust of the northern Tibetan Plateau. Xiao
et al. [9] inverted the locking degree of the Longmenshan fault
and the strain rates in the Longmenshan region during ten years
* Corresponding author. School of Geodesy and Geomatics, Wuhan University,
Wuhan, 430079, China.
E-mail address: cjxu@sgg.whu.edu.cn (C. Xu).
Peer review under responsibility of Institute of Seismology, China Earthquake
Administration.
Production and Hosting by Elsevier on behalf of KeAi
before the 2008 Mw7.9 Wenchuan earthquake using GPS data,
and illustrated that the Longmenshan fault was nearly
completely locked before the earthquake and crustal strain
slowly accumulated near the fault. Wang et al. [10] inverted the
distribution of the coseismic slip of the 2016 Aketao earthquake
by exploiting InSAR images. Their results suggest the rupture of
this earthquake may have consisted of two sub-events that
occurred in rapid succession mode. Wen et al. [11] employed
multitemporal InSAR time series technique to map the post-
seismic motion after the 2001 Mw7.8 Kokoxili earthquake with
the highest accuracy and spatial resolution until now, and then
concluded that the principal postseismic relaxation process is
due to viscous flow in the lower crust to upper mantle. It can be
concluded that the tectonic geodesy is an important branch of
geodesy and geophysics, and has wide application in geoscience.
In geoscience disciplines, including tectonic geodesy, Generic
Mapping Tools (GMT) is the most widely used data visualization
software which produces high-quality vector figures, such as GPS
velocity field, strain rate field, and focal mechanisms for geophys-
ical scientists [12]. As it's written for command-line usage,
numerous arguments have to be set when using GMT, which brings
deficiencies of the high learning cost, non-visual operation and
cumbersome steps to fine-tuning the map elements. In addition to
GMT, Python-based Matplotlib Basemap Toolkit [13], MATLAB-

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geog.2019.08.001
1674-9847/© 2019 Institute of Seismology, China Earthquake Administration, etc. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi Communications Co., Ltd. This is
an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Please cite this article as: Z. Fang et al., A tectonic geodesy mapping software based on QGIS, Geodesy and Geodynamics, https://doi.org/10.1016/
j.geog.2019.08.001
2 Z. Fang et al. / Geodesy and Geodynamics xxx (xxxx) xxx

based M_Map [14] and R-based ggmap [15] are also widely used as
geoscience mapping tools but with the similar deficiencies to GMT. Application Rendering Processing Analysis Mapping
In terms of softwares with Graphical User Interface (GUI), Surfer
is a commonly used commercial software to visualize geo-data.
However, Surfer focuses on mapping contours and 3D surfaces,
which is far from the requirements of tectonic geodesy. Geographic
Information System (GIS) is another choice as many GIS applica- Controller QGIS development kit Qt framework
tions can make various and colorful thematic maps. Although the
GPS velocity field and other elements are also not support by GIS
applications, they can be realized by Application Programming In-
terfaces (APIs). InSAR Geographic
Data CTGVD
Xu et al. [16] developed a seismic hazard evaluating system for images basemaps
active faults based on ArcObject components, which can map focal
mechanism solutions, GPS/InSAR deformation fields, and geological Fig. 1. The architecture diagram of TGA.
tectonic backgrounds. These features have greatly contributed to
the researches on the coseismic deformation of the 2010 Mw6.9
Yushu earthquake [17], which are the contemporary tectonic
feature editing, map tools, map layout, etc. The Qt framework is
stressing rates of major strike-slip faults in the Tibetan Plateau [18],
mainly responsible for the UI interaction of TGA.
the seismogenic asperities on the Xianshuihe-Anninghe-Zemuhe
fault system [19], and the recognition of the seismogenic fault of
the 2016 Zaduo Earthquake in Qinghai, China [20]. 2.3. Function modules
However, this system cannot plot the strain rate field and the
rotation rate field. In addition, the module for data visualization is According to the design requirements, TGA contains 6 functional
not complete as ArcGIS-assisted operations are needed. Moreover, modules, namely, renderer, view, feature editor, image editor,
with the development of computer hardware and software, 64-bit processing tools and map producer. The diagram of functional
computers and operating systems (OS) have become the main- modules is shown in Fig. 2.
stream, while ArcGIS Engine and ArcObjects component library of
Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) only provide 32- 2.3.1. View
bit version, which cannot make full use of 64-bit computers as Various map tools are required when browsing a map, including
well as their OS and limits the capability of data analysis, geodetic zooming in, out, full, last and next, overview, as well as refresh
and geophysical forward and inversion in this system. Therefore, operation.
based on the 64-bit QGIS 3.0 development interface and the soft-
ware architecture of the seismic hazard evaluating system for active
faults developed in 2012, a tectonic mapping software, TGA, is re- 2.3.2. Feature editor
developed in this paper, realizing the generic mapping function This module is used to add, move, and delete vector features.
in the tectonic geodesy discipline. CTGVD except points, lines and polygons are not editable. Features
of faults and rivers are usually expressed in the form of polylines
2. Design and realization while active blocks, administrative divisions and InSAR coverage
are usually expressed in the form of polygons. For example, it is
2.1. Development environment usually necessary to construct the boundary of the block based on
known active faults when extracting data within the block.
We develop TGA in the Visual Studio 14.0 compiler and Qt5.9
environment based on the Cþþ API provided by the 64-bit QGIS 3.0 2.3.3. Image editor
development kit. The CORE library and GUI library in QGIS are used This module contains common edit method of raster images,
in development. The former contains all basic GIS functionality including clip, mosaic, downsampling, arithmetic operation,
while the latter is built on top of the former and adds reusable GUI generating interferogram, synthesizing Line of Sight (LOS)
widgets. displacement, as well as conversion tool between binary data and
Geospatial Data Abstraction Library (GDAL) image formats.
2.2. Architecture

As shown in Fig. 1, TGA is divided into three layers: data layer, Table 1
controller layer and application layer. The data layer provides data The data type supported by TGA.
support for the application layer. The controller layer responds to
Data Type Format Description
the data input and logical operation commands. The application
layer realizes the functions of rendering, processing, analysis and geographic basemap .tif.img.grd terrain images
.shp.geojson OGR vector data
mapping based on the former two layers. InSAR images .bin binary data from GAMMA
Table 1 gives the data types supported by the data layer, .tif.img.grd raster images
including InSAR images, geographic basemaps and customized CTGVD .pts points
tectonic geodesy vector data (CTGVD). InSAR images contain raster .lin lines
.plg polygons
images and binary data processed by GAMMA or other professional
.gps GPS displacements
softwares. Geographic basemaps are raster data of terrain and .lev leveling displacements
vector data of faults, rivers, etc. .fms focal mechanisms
The controller layer consists of QGIS development kit and Qt .rsr principal strain and rotation rate
framework. The QGIS development kit, as stated in 2.1, provides .etc Earthquake catalog
.sar InSAR data
developers with the significant GIS API and widgets for rendering,

Please cite this article as: Z. Fang et al., A tectonic geodesy mapping software based on QGIS, Geodesy and Geodynamics, https://doi.org/10.1016/
j.geog.2019.08.001
 Z. Fang et al. / Geodesy and Geodynamics xxx (xxxx) xxx 3

Zoom In Clip & Mosaic

Zoom Out Downsampling

Pan Arithmetic Operation

Image
Editor
Overview View Generate Interferogram

Zoom Last Synthesizing LOS Displacement

Zoom Next Format Converter

Refresh
Extract Data in Block
Tectonic
Geodesy
Extract Elevation Data
Mapping
Add Feature
Software
Build Fault Geometrical Model
Move Feature
Feature Processing
Extract Fault Segment Parameters
Editor Tools
Duplicate
Extract Incidence/Azimuth Angle
Delete Feature
Coordinate Transformation

Reference Frame Conversion

Vector Renderer

Labeling Renderer Decoration

Map
Producer
Raster Renderer Output

Fig. 2. The function modules of system.

2.3.4. Renderer
Vector renderer types cover single symbol renderer, categorized
symbol renderer and graduated symbol renderer. Raster render
types include gray renderer, pseudo color renderer and hillshade
renderer. As shown in Fig. 3, users are required to adjust arguments
like display scale, to preview features when plot elements in some
formats (.gps,.lev,.fms and.rsr) for a satisfactory display effect. As
shown in Fig. 4, in addition to the default symbols provided by
QGIS, arrow symbols and fault symbols for tectonic geodesy are
predefined. Symbols in different styles could also be modified or
designed according to the user's requirement. The commonly used
color ramps for Digital Elevation Model (DEM) and InSAR raster
rendering are also built-in.
2.3.5. Processing tools
This module provides several processing tools. Extraction tools
are powerful to extract data in block, such as InSAR elevation data,
fault segment parameters and InSAR incidence/azimuth angle.
Coordinate transformation between geodetic and GausseKrüger
coordinate system is usually helpful to distance calculation.
2.3.6. Map producer
Map production is the process of arranging map elements on a
sheet of paper. Common elements of a map are the legend, scale
bar, north arrow, color ramp, insert map, text label, grid, etc. In the
process, map decoration refers to decorating the layout view
including addition and modification of these elements. According
to the mapping requirement of tectonic geodesy, color ramps could
be dynamically drawn based on the renderings of raster layers, and
the ranges of them are editable. After the map decoration, the
thematic map could be output to a vector file or a raster file with
the specified resolution and format.
3. Samples of software usage
3.1. Geologic map of Papua New Guinea
Geologic maps represent the feature distribution of rocks, faults,
minerals, groundwater, etc., which are the basic data for research
on regional geology. The commonly used mapping software for
geological maps includes CorelDRAW, MapGIS, etc. Since a large
number of features usually need to be classified with different
colors, rendering of such figures by GMT requires complex file
configuration. TGA could easily classify the color display of the
study area according to the geologic age or unit by the feature
renderer interface provided by QGIS.
The geologic map of Papua New Guinea shown in Fig. 6 takes the
geological features of this country and national boundaries (https://
data.humdata.org/group/png?ext_cod¼1) as basemaps. The geolog-
ical features are extracted from the geological data of Southeast Asia
(https://www.orrbodies.com/resource/ccop-geology-south-east-asia
/?Tdsourcetag ¼ s_pctim_aiomsg) and classified by the lithology. The
background color of the map, i.e., the color of the Pacific Ocean, is set
to light blue for a pleasant appearance. The legend and the frame
with coordinates are added as necessary decoration elements.
3.2. Seismicity in China and surrounding regions
QGIS provides an SQLite database file storing over 6000 coor-
dinate reference systems (CRS) used around the world, including
geographic coordinate systems and projected coordinate systems.

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j.geog.2019.08.001
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Fig. 3. Adding GPS velocity field layer.

As CRSs are defined in the format of PROJ.4, a library for performing
conversions between cartographic projections, the knowledge of
PROJ.4 is necessary when defining a custom CRS.
Fig. 7 shows the seismicity map in China and its surrounding
regions, using the Lambert Conformal Conic (LCC) projection. The
central meridian is 105 E and the two standard parallels are 25 N
and 47 N, respectively. Therefore, the definition of the projection is
expressed as þ proj ¼ lcc þ lon_0 ¼ 105 þ lat_1 ¼ 25 þ lat_2 ¼ 47.
The relief image is extracted, leaving only the land portion. The
background color of the map represents the ocean portion in Fig. 6.
The earthquake data are load in the format of points (.pts). The
moment magnitude of each earthquake is indicated by the size of
the circle, while the focal depth indicated by the filled color.
It can be seen from Fig. 7 that most of the large continental
earthquakes occurred in the margins of the Tibetan Plateau,
including the Main Himalayan Thrust and the Longmen Shan fold
and thrust belt. In addition, some of the large continental earth-
quakes also occurred in the tectonic belt between the Pamir and
Tien Shan. Interestingly, some deep-focus earthquakes occurred
in Northeast China, as well as North Korea, which is proposed to
be related to the deep subducted of the Japan Trench into the
Eurasian Plate.
3.3. Seismicity and crustal deformation of the Tibetan Plateau
Due to its active tectonic movements and complex fault sys-
tems, the Tibetan Plateau is a hotspot in seismology and geo-
dynamics research. Fig. 8 shows the distribution of terrain, active
faults and earthquakes larger than Mw6.0 in the same rendering
type of Fig. 5.
Fig. 9 shows the GPS velocity field around the Tibetan
Plateau from 1999 to 2013 [21] with 95% confidence ellipse. The
principal strain rate field in a 1  1 area, shown in Fig. 10, is
deduced from GPS velocities by the least-square collocation
method [22]. Strain rate results in India are not accurate enough
because of large gaps of GPS data distribution in spatial
coverage. To remove the results of India on the map, feature
editor is used to add a new polygon covering the region with
dense GPS stations, then extract tool is used to extract data in
the polygon. The rotation rate field shown in Fig. 11 is derived
from fake data, which are just approximate values referring to
Fig. 5 of Gan et al. [23].
Due to the characteristics of interactive mapping, when pro-
ducing Figs. 8e11, it is efficient to plot arrow symbols of velocity
field and principal strain field, as well as sector symbols of rotate

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 Z. Fang et al. / Geodesy and Geodynamics xxx (xxxx) xxx 5

Fig. 4. Predefined line symbols in the style manager.

Fig. 5. Rendering of global relief data and focal mechanisms. Focal mechanisms of earthquakes with magnitude greater than Mw6.0 since 1976 (https://www.globalcmt.org) are
classified into different colors according to their types of faults. 1 arc-minute global relief data is visually designed in correct color ramp by pseudo color renderer.

Please cite this article as: Z. Fang et al., A tectonic geodesy mapping software based on QGIS, Geodesy and Geodynamics, https://doi.org/10.1016/
j.geog.2019.08.001
6 Z. Fang et al. / Geodesy and Geodynamics xxx (xxxx) xxx

Fig. 6. Geologic map of Papua New Guinea.

rate field. The styles and positions of map elements can be
conveniently adjusted, while it is extremely tedious of the fine-
tuning if using GMT. The visual operation of color adjustment
can greatly improve the production efficiency, especially when
rendering DEM.
3.4. Coseismic deformation of the 2017 Jiuzhaigou earthquake
On 8 August 2017 (UTC 21:19:46), a Ms7.0 earthquake occurred
in Jiuzhaigou county, Sichuan province. The epicenter is 103.82  E,
33.20 N, with a ~20 km focal depth. We obtained the coseismic

Fig. 7. Seismicity in China and surrounding regions.

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 Z. Fang et al. / Geodesy and Geodynamics xxx (xxxx) xxx 7

Fig. 8. Tectonic setting of the Tibetan Plateau.

Fig. 9. The observed GPS velocity field between 1999 and 2013 around the Tibetan Plateau.

Fig. 10. The principal strain rate field between 1999 and 2013 in the Tibetan Plateau.

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8 Z. Fang et al. / Geodesy and Geodynamics xxx (xxxx) xxx

Fig. 11. The rotation rate field between 1999 and 2013 in the Tibetan Plateau derived from fake data.

deformation field and the inverted coseismic slip distribution. If we use GMT to map Fig. 12 which contains a main map and
Then, we mapped the tectonic setting and the simulated defor- two insert maps, the placements and sizes of arguments of the
mation from coseismic slip distribution of Jiuzhaigou Earthquake three maps need to be fine-tuned many times. However, we could
using our software, as shown in Figs. 12 and 13. easily zoom and drag each map in the layout interface, and link the

Fig. 12. Tectonic setting of the 2017 Jiuzhaigou earthquake. (a)Red arrows with error ellipses of 95% confidence represent coseismic displacements from GPS data [24]. Black and red
bench balls represent focal mechanisms of strike-slip and thrust events. Blue solid rectangles outline the coverage of the ascending and descending InSAR data. (c) The aftershocks
are plotted with magnitude-dependent colored circles.

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Fig. 13. The simulated coseismic deformation of the 2017 Jiuzhaigou earthquake. (a) The ascending interferogram. (b) The descending interferogram. The red star represents the
epicenter of the event.
overview map (b) and main map (a) using TGA. The rectangular
range in (b) is automatically generated without any other
argument.
4. Conclusion
Referring to our seismic hazard evaluating system for active
faults developed in 2012, we re-develop a tectonic geodesy map-
ping software with the latest 64-bit QGIS 3.0 development inter-
face. Compared with GMT, the tectonic geodesy mapping software
has the advantages of simple operation, low learning cost and user-
friendly interface according to the application in mapping geolog-
ical features, seismicity and crustal deformation and InSAR
coseismic deformation. In future, we will improve the software to
make it more widely used in research on tectonic geodesy.
Conflict of interest
We declare that we do not have any commercial or associative
interest that represents a conflict of interest in connection with the
work submitted.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the NSFC projects (Grant Nos:
41431069, 41574002and 41721003).
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Dr. Caijun Xu, specially-appointed professor of “Cheung
Kong Scholars Program”, Ph.D. supervisor, vice dean of
Geodesy and Geomatics, Wuhan University, a member of
Innovation Team of the National Natural Science Founda-
tion of China (NSFC) and the Reviewing Expertise Group
of NSFC, was born in March, 1964 in Jiangyin, Jiangsu prov-
ince. With a title of Hubei Provincial Youth Expert with
Outstanding Contributions and an award of “Surveying
and Mapping Medal” in the national surveying and
Please cite this article as: Z. Fang et al., A tectonic geodesy mapping software based on QGIS, Geodesy and Geodynamics, https://doi.org/10.1016/
j.geog.2019.08.001
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mapping system. His research interests are: 1. Theory
and method of Geophysical Geodesy. 2. Active crustal
deformation processes with GPS &InSAR measurements.
3. Inversion of kinematics and dynamics parameters
from surface deformation data. 4. Modeling of tectonic
deformation in plate boundary zones, earthquake defor-
mation, inflation and eruption of active volcanoes; Earth-
quake triggering and the earthquake cycle.