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Due: Thursday, April 9th
Lab 12
-- G OOGLE E ARTH : I MPORTING D ATA --
Section 2: Importing Points
1. Getting KML Data
- Connect to \geobase\geo4385 and make a Lab12 folder.
- In a web browser, navigate to the following U.S. Geological Survey website that hosts data from the latest global earthquakes: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/catalogs/
- Locate the Google Earth KML dataset titled: M1+ earthquakes, past 7 days (colored by age) and download/copy this to your Lab12 folder on \geobase. This file will save to your computer with the name eqs7day-age.kmz.
- Next launch Google Earth Pro , select File Open and choose the eqs7day-age.kmz file. Collapse the Search and Layers windows and
Due: Thursday, April 9th
note that the file’s contents display in your Places window and that there are several sub-folders contained in this .kmz file.
- In your viewing window, zoom into the California area and note the various earthquakes, their colors, and the information contained in balloons.
- Now inspect the data contained in your earthquakes file using the Places window. Expand/collapse the different data folders to get a feel for how the data is organized.
Question 1
According to the Places window, what is the name of this dataset?
What are the two primary folder names?
What are the names of two images (logo & legend)?
Describe where these two images appear in your viewing window (example, bottom left, center of the viewer, etc).
- Now use the files listed in the folders to answer the following questions.
Question 2
How many magnitude 6 earthquakes are listed in this dataset?
How many of magnitude 2?
What is the largest magnitude earthquake listed in this dataset?
- Now use the viewing window to answer the following questions.
Due: Thursday, April 9th
contains a heading of each of the columns in the file, and that each column is separate by a comma.
Question 4
Which column (number 1, 2, 3, etc.) contains the Latitude (Lat) information?
Which column contains the Longitude (Lon) information?
Which column contains the date/time information? Note that the date and time data are included in quotes “ “, which keeps all of the info contained in the same column.
- Now go back one page in your web browser (back to the page with the CSV files) and download M1+ earthquakes, past day file to your Lab folder on \geobase (right-click and select Save link as (Firefox) or Save target as (Explorer)). This file will save to your computer with the name eqs1day-M1.txt.
3. Importing Data into Excel
- Open Excel and a new blank spreadsheet should appear. To open the
file you just downloaded, click on File Open. In the Open window,
change the file type option to “ All Files (.)** ”, select the file, and click
Open. (Note, on a Mac running Office 2008, go File Import Text
File Import and Enable: All Files select your text file Get
Data).
- You will next be greeted by the “Text Import Wizard” screen. Follow the instructions on the wizard’s screen to import your data in the Excel format. Important , in Step 1, make sure you select the Delimited button for the file type (see next page).
Due: Thursday, April 9th
- In Step 2, select Comma as the Delimeter (uncheck Tab, if that is the default) and make sure that each column is appropriately separated by a line.
Due: Thursday, April 9th
- Click OK , then specify your Lab12 folder as the location to save this template file. It will have the extension *.kst.
- Next, in you Places window, de-select (uncheck) the data file you were previously working with in Google Earth.
- Under the Temporary Places folder, your eqs1day-M1.csv folder should be listed. Select (check) the file for viewing, and navigate your globe so that you can see the US and/or Alaska western coastline. You should see several white dots, representing the locations contained in your earthquake file.
- Click on several of the data points and observe the contents of the pop up balloons.
Question 5
How do these data differ in style from the .kmz file you imported directly into Google Earth? List 2 differences.
What do the labels currently correspond to?
6. Classifying your data
To separate the earthquakes dataset into categories of magnitude, for example, you will need to do a bit of extra work in both Excel and Google Earth.
- Return to your .CSV file in Excel and select the entire Magnitude column.
- Copy/paste this column in to the next available column on the right, next to Region. Re-name this pasted column Magnitude Rounded.
- Then select the entire column and change the Format of the data (found in your Formatting toolbar) to Number. Then click on the decrease decimal icon (also found in your Formatting toolbar) twice, so that you decimal numbers get rounded to the next integer.
Due: Thursday, April 9th
- Then select File Save , and make sure that CSV is selected for the file format again (keep the same name). Click OK to any warning windows.
- You will now re-import your eqs1day-M1.csv file, but this time you will adjust the template settings. Re-import your file into Google Earth in the same way that you imported the previous file (File Import). Click Yes to the prompt about overriding your previous file and Yes about applying a style template.
- First, set the Name field to Region_2 from the drop-down menu. Each icon will now be labeled according to the Region designation in the file. Previously the labels corresponded with the first data column, which was the data source.
- Next you will classify the earthquake magnitudes by color. Click on the Color tab, then click on the Set color from field button and change the Select color field to Magnitude Rounded.
- Choose the starting and ending color for your color mapping. See graphic on next page – you should get something similar, but not exactly since the earthquake file you downloaded changes every day. To change the color range, click on each color block and set the starting and ending colors as desired. Google Earth automatically calculates the color range between the two chosen values. For practice, select red as the start color and blue as the end color
Due: Thursday, April 9th
subfolders for each color bucket so that the Places listing displays the data elements grouped by color into their respective folders. This makes it easier for you to show or hide the display of color groups simply by selecting or removing the check box next to the folder. Once you select the sub-folder option, you must provide a name for your sub-folder in order for the data to be properly grouped in the Places listing.
- Name each subfolder appropriately (Example: Magnitude 2, Magnitude 1, etc.).
7. Reviewing your data
- Take another look at your data folders in the Places window. The icons should be color-coded as you specified.
- To change the size of the icons, right-click on one of your Magnitude folders and select Properties. Click on the Style,Color tab, then click Share Style. Click on the Icon box increase the Icon Scale size to 2.0. Don’t mess with the colors right now, but note that you can. Also note that you can also change the shape of the icon by clicking in the upper right corner of the Properties window. Explore this option, but do not change the icon for now.
- In the Places window, look for aftershocks of Monday’s devastating earthquake in Italy. The larger aftershocks were in the magnitude 4 range. Double click one of these event to zoom into it’s location in the viewing window. If you would like to view the main earthquake, there is a file in the Instructor folder/Lab12 on \geobase that contains this event.
Question 6. How many miles was this quake from Rome?
Use the measuring too to do this. Click on the ruler icon at the top menu bar and make sure miles is selected. Then click on the quake location once, and drag the line to the location of Rome. The distance will display in the Ruler window. Close the window when you’re done.
How deep was this earthquake?
What was its magnitude?
Due: Thursday, April 9th
8. Save your work to a .kmz file
- Lastly, save your work. Right-click your CSV file (at its highest level) and select Save Place As. Save the file as a .kmz file to your Lab12 folder on \geobase.
9. Things to think about for Thursday…..Quiz
Can you make a new spreadsheet with lat/long locations that you collected from last week’s lab (Places I’d like to go/Places I’ve been) and import these into Google Earth? Think about how you set up the data in columns (1 st^ latitude, 2 nd^ longitude, 3 rd^ column Place name, 4 th other category (i.e., travel costs, liked/disliked, days spent, etc.) and how you’d plot these accordingly in Google Earth.
Due: Thursday, April 9th
first row with the column labels into each file, then the actual data. Save and name these files in a similar manner to the mag6plus.csv file
Now import each of your magnitude data files into Google Earth in the same way that you imported the previous file. Unselect eqs1day-M1.csv and make sure that your new .csv files are selected.
Double click on your mag6plus folder to navigate to one of the earthquake locations in this category. Make sure that you can see at least one event in your viewing window. Right-click the mag6plus folder in the Places window and select Properties. Click on the Style,Color tab, then click Share Style. Click on the Icon box and pick a red color. Increase the Icon Scale size to 2.0. Note that you can also change the shape of the icon by clicking in the upper right corner of the Properties window. Explore this option, but do not change the icon for now.
Lastly, to get rid of the annoying text (representing the source of the data) above the placemark icon, expand the mag6plus folder in the Places window, and right-click on the first listing. Select Properties. In the Name box at the top, change the text to “M6+”. This will change the label. You can also do this with a right-click -> Rename selection. Repeat this for the other earthquakes in this category.
For the other two categories, make the following changes:
Magnitude 3-5 Change color to orange, icon size 1.
Magnitude 1-2 Change color to yellow, icon size 1
Question 7. How many magnitude 6+ earthquakes do you have (edit the title of this folder so that it reflect this, just like the .kmz file you initially explored?
How many magnitude 3-5?
How many magnitude 1-2?
Exercise 1.
Create a placemark located at the UTEP campus with a description balloon that contains the following:
Due: Thursday, April 9th
- UTEP internet address: http://utep.edu
- Insert text that contains the address of your home Department, ie: University of Texas at El Paso, Department of Geological Sciences, El Paso, Texas 79968.
- Insert an image of UTEP (see below)
- Insert the UTEP logo (see below)
- Save your file as YourName_UTEP.kml and drop a copy in the DropBox
To insert an image of UTEP and the UTEP logo, use pg 12-13 of the Digital Explorer handout for help. You will first need to find the images you want to use, and a good place to start is at http://images.google.com. Type in “UTEP” or “UTEP logo” in the Search Images box to look for images. Once you find an image you like, click on the link, then click on See full size image , then copy the full web address of the image. (Note, on a Mac, you can right-click on the image and select Copy Image Address). Then open the placemark properties, and add an “image tag” to the description. This is just additional text that gives the web address of the image, in the following format:
< img src=”http://your.image.address.jpg”>
- Save your placemark to your Lab11 folder on \geobase. Give your placemark the name YourName_UTEP.kml.
- To scale the image down to size, you can append the text object width=”100” height=”100” inside your
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command. The numbers are in pixel dimensions, so you can vary them as large or as small as you like. See p. 39 of the Digital Explorer for more help.
< img src=”http://your.image.address.jpg” object width=”100” height=”100”>
Exercise 2.
Create a placemark at Redoubt volcano with a description balloon that contains the following YouTube video of the recent eruption from the Associate Press: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CN-EGuCBUg.^ Use^ pp^ 39-42^ of^ the^ Digital Explorer handout for help with this. Simply copy and paste the Embeded text from YouTube into your description balloon text.
- Save your file as YourName_Redoubt.kml and drop a copy in the DropBox
Exercise 3.
