Many software and data are available in open access, which can be useful for students, teachers, and anyone interested in Earth Sciences (Geology, Paleontology, Geochemistry, Geophysics). The following list includes only non-commercial software. Some of these programs are old and work on now-obsolete systems, while others are operational on the latest existing operating systems.

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ONLINE DATA

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• The USGS World Earthquake Map

• The Seismic Monitoring Network Map of the French Alps (Sismalp)

• The GLACIOCLIM Data

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ATLAS

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• The Plate Tectonics Program: GPlates is an open-source software application that offers interactive tectonic reconstructions, Geographic Information System (GIS) capabilities, and raster data visualization.

• A geological atlas of the French Alps. The author of the site, Maurice GIDON, has been particularly interested in the geology of the Chartreuse massif since his adolescence and during his academic career. He has done a complete geological mapping of this massif, which led him to realize that the Chartreuse massif, with its proximity to the university cities of Grenoble and Chambéry (France) and its variety of natural examples, could serve as an introduction to field geology in the mountains through imagery.

 

CRYSTALLOGRAPHY

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• The International Union of Crystallography sponsors the Crystallographic Information Framework (CIF), a standard for the exchange of information in crystallography, covering both data and software..

• DRAWxtl is an open-source program for producing drawings of crystal structures, by Larry W. Finger, Martin Kroeker, and Brian H. Toby. It runs on Windows 2000, XP, Vista, and Windows 7, Mac (OS X), Linux, and other Unix-like systems, and OpenVMS.

• JCrystalSoft (maintained by Steffen Weber) offers crystallographic software for educational and research purposes, including Fourier Painter, JCrystal, KrystalShaper, Nanotube Modeler, WinWULFF, WinLAUE, Kossel/Kikuchi, QuaRef, FTL-SE.

• MAUD is a free software for analyzing diffraction data using a combined Rietveld method. Its capabilities go beyond diffraction and include fluorescence and reflectivity. It can analyze data from X-ray, neutron, TOF, and TEM sources.

• Sincris is a database of software that covers all fields of crystallography.

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STRUCTURAL GEOLOGY - TECTONICS - ROCK MECHANICS

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• Structural geology software for Mac and Windows by Rick Allmendinger.

• Applications for macOS offered by Nestor Cardozo : 2-D deformation modeling (cdem), stereographic projection. (Stereonet3D), Mohr circle (GeoKalk), strain rate calculation (SSPX), deformation field visualization (Trishear3D), backstripping (Backstrip), elastic lithospheric flexure modeling (Flex2D). 

• Dr. Frederick W. Vollmer's website (structural geologist) offers a treasure trove of tools, including Orient, a stereographic projection software for Mac, Windows, and Linux. There is also EllipseFit for analyzing finite strain and geological fabrics, and Antevs for analyzing natural time series (varve analysis, correlogram construction).

• GeoOrient is a suite of software for Windows that allows plotting stereographic projections and rose diagrams, including wind roses ; structural calculations and oriented core analysis (GeoCalculator); strain and shear zone calculations; GIS software (Mapinfo) for calculating trends (azimuths) and vector lengths (GeoMapVector); and tools for plotting structural symbols on maps in MapInfo (GeoMapSymbol), developed by Rod Holcombe.​

• mplstereonet is a Python library that allows for the visualization and analysis of geological and geophysical data using stereonets.

• SG2PS is a graphical application for evaluating and processing structural data from the field and wells.

• GemPy is an open-source, Python-based project for generating 3D structural geological models. Utilizing an implicit modeling approach, it enables the creation of complex combinations of stratigraphical and structural features, including folds, faults, and unconformities. Moreover, GemPy is specifically designed for probabilistic modeling to tackle parameter and model uncertainties effectively.

• Visible Geology was initiated by Rowan Cockett during an undergraduate geological engineering course at the University of Calgary, Canada. It involved many classroom activities that included visualizations, such as wedge failures, road cuts, and volume calculations.

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GEOPHYSICS

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• BERT is software for ERT data modeling and inversion. It was initially programmed as C++ applications based on the pyGIMLi core library, as well as bash scripts for the command line. It increasingly uses Python via pyGIMLi and pybert, not only for visualization but also for calculations. 

• ObsPy is an open-source project aimed at providing a Python framework for processing seismological data.

• iFocalMechanism by C. H. Jones is a program (Mac) for exploring the focal mechanisms of earthquakes using first motion data. Its primary goal is to allow users to interactively explore how changes in parameters affect the quality of the fit of a collection of first motion polarity choices. If a velocity model is imported with station distances from the event (manually), users can also explore the effect of event depth error on focal mechanisms. A mismatch value is calculated that reduces the weight of stations near a nodal plane.

• The Seismic Duck (Windows and Mac)

• PaleoMag is a paleomagnetism software. The latest version now contains basic functions for many paleomagnetic applications (sample lists, orthogonal projections, J/J0 plots, etc.).

• REFRAPY: is a Python 3 program for processing refraction seismic data (a great alternative to overpriced commercial software!).

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GEOTECHNICS - APPLIED GEOLOGY

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• GAEA is a leading provider of integrated software solutions for geoscientists and engineers. GAEA offers innovative software for assessing and visualizing resources and contaminants, leveraging common synergies between geosciences and engineering across a wide variety of industries. GAEA is a commercial site, but demo versions of the software are also available.

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PALEONTOLOGIE

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• For professional or amateur paleontologists, fossil identification tools are available on the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität website.

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PETROGRAPHY-PETROLOGY-MINERALOGY-GEOCHEMISTRY

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• CSpace (Composition Space) is a program designed to facilitate the graphical and algebraic analysis of data representing compositional coordinates, such as chemical analyses of minerals, rocks, or other substances or systems.

• Ternary diagrams are used in mineralogy, petrology, sedimentology, paleontology, seismology. DeltaPlot, created by Cédric M. John (Imperial College London), is free software that allows the creation of ternary diagrams from a Mac.

• PETRO.CALC.PLOT is a set of macros by G. B. Sidder (USGS) that allows for normalization of whole-rock oxide data to 100%, calculation of cation percentages and molecular proportions used for normative mineral calculations, determination of ternary diagram vertices, and calculation of sums and ratios of elements of specific petrological interest, as well as plotting of 33 X-Y graphs and five ternary diagrams. PETRO.CALC.PLOT can also be used to create other diagrams as per the user's wishes. The macros run on Microsoft Excel 3.0 and 4.0 for both Macintosh and Windows.

• PHREEQC Version 3 is a computer program developed by the USGS in C++ to perform a wide variety of aqueous geochemical calculations. PHREEQC implements several types of aqueous models, including two ion association models. WEB-PHREEQ is a web-based implementation of PHREEQC developed by David Parkhurst of the USGS. 

• Pingu is a tool for plotting major element and trace element diagrams. The input is a tab- or space-separated file, with each line corresponding to a particular sample. Two methods of data entry are available: file upload by right-click or from the Workspace (for advanced users). A tab with different chart options and another to define the chart legend are provided. The result can be directly downloaded from Vhub to your personal computer as a high-quality jpeg image. Some available plots include: Harker and Fenner variation diagrams; TAS and K2O-SiO2 classification diagrams; AFM diagrams; REE element diagrams; Sun and McDonough spider diagrams; Pearce spider diagrams; generic ternary (X-Y-Z) diagrams; generic binary (X-Y) diagrams..

• Programmes P-T-t by Ganguly

Several programs are available on Jibamitra Ganguly's FTP site for (a) thermobarometry, (b) kinetic modeling of retrograde diffusion zoning in garnet, and (c) high-temperature thermochronology.

The files and program explanations are as follows:

(a) P-T Calc: This file contains several programs for calculating the P-T conditions of rocks using garnet-based thermobarometers and the garnet solution model of Ganguly et al. (1996; CMP 126, 137-151). The programs in this file include:

GT-AX.EXE: Calculates the activity of garnet end-member components using the Ganguly et al. (1996) solution model and input composition data. GTPX-TEM.EXE: Calculates temperature (T) using the Grt-Opx and Grt-CPx thermometers as discussed in Ganguly et al. (1996). GtBt-GASP: There are three programs in this folder: (i) GASP1.EXE (ii) GT-BT_T1.EXE and (iii) gb-gasp1.exe. These programs calculate (i) pressure (P) using the GASP barometer at a specified temperature (T), (ii) temperature (T) using the Grt-Bt (Fe-Mg exchange) thermometer at a specified pressure (P), and (iii) solve simultaneously for P and T using the GASP and Grt-Bt equilibria. For an idea of the reliability of P-T estimates using these formulations, see Dasgupta, Ganguly, Neogi (2004, JMG 22, 395-412).

(b) DIFF-CL.ZIP: This ZIP file contains programs used to calculate the average closure temperature of minerals and age profiles in individual mineral grains based on input data on the diffusion kinetics of radiogenic daughter products and maximum temperatures. The theory was developed by Ganguly and Tirone (1999: EPSL 170, 131-140). It represents a modification of Dodson's classic formulation (1973, CMP 40, 259-274) of the concept of closure temperature.

(c) REAZ_Minuit*: There are several programs in this folder for modeling retrograde compositional zoning in garnet with a homogeneous core to recover cooling rates (see Ganguly et al. 2000: EPSL 183, 471-486).

• The GeoChemical Data ToolKIT, or GCDkit for short, is a system for manipulating and recalculating whole-rock chemical analyses. It is written in R and allows the plotting of many graphs used in endogenous petrology (AFM classification, TAS, ...).

• The list of software established by the Mineralogical Society of America (MSA) : it includes GCDkit, a set of geochemical tools for processing and recalculating whole-rock analyses from igneous rocks. It is written in R. It enables standard geochemical calculations involving data on major elements, trace elements, and Sr-Nd. It offers the possibility to plot common charts (binary, ternary, spider diagrams). Version 2.3 of GCDkit was released on May 11, 2008. Currently, GCDkit runs under the Windows graphical interface. 

• Solvcalc is a set of interactive graphical programs for Windows, designed to calculate the feldspar solvus and for two-feldspar geothermometry. Download the sv2.exe.zip file, unzip it, and save it in a new folder; it will automatically create a variety of files. Two are of interest. One is Solvcalc.exe, which is the program you want to use, the other is solvcalc.htm, which you should open first and provides instructions. This software should be referenced as follows: 

Wen, S.and Nekvasil, H. (1994) SOLVCALC: An interactive graphics program package for calculating the ternary feldspar solvus and for two-feldspar geothermometry. Computers & Geosciences 20, No. 6, 1025-1040.

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Professeur Hanna Nekvasil

Department of Geosciences

State University of New York

Stony Brook, NY 11794-2100 U.S.A. email: hnekvasil@notes.cc.sunysb.edu​

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• THERIAK-DOMINO: The THERIAK-DOMINO software collection by C. de Capitani calculates and plots thermodynamic functions, equilibrium assemblages, and equilibrium assemblage diagrams specific to rocks (elsewhere also called pseudo-sections). This collection includes the following programs: (i) Theriak, the core of the collection, calculates the stable mineral assemblage and phase compositions for a given rock (bulk composition) at specified P,T conditions, (ii) Domino can calculate (a) equilibrium assemblage diagrams with selectable axes (P, T, activity of components, and logarithms of activity of components), (b) pseudo-binary or pseudo-ternary phase diagrams, (c) phase composition isopleths as well as density, volume, or modal abundance distributions; (d) global rock parameter distribution, (iii and iv) Therbin and Therter calculate binary and ternary phase diagrams at constant P and/or T, (v and vi) Thalia and Thermo calculate the dependence of thermodynamic parameters of phases or assemblages on T or P or (binary) composition, (vii and viii) Guzzler and Explot are used to convert the graphical output from the above programs into 'ready-to-use' postscript files that can be viewed on-screen or printed on paper.

• The XRD diffraction model catalog is intended for qualitative or quantitative mineralogical analysis of geological materials. The original collection of 169 reference diffractograms was published by Eberl (2003) as part of RockJock, a USGS program for the quantitative analysis of mineralogy in a wide variety of rocks, sediments, soils, and other geological materials.

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MAPPING and GIS (A Geographic Information System - GIS - is a system designed to capture, store, manipulate, analyze, manage, and present all types of spatial or geographical data.)​​

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• PyGMT is a Python interface for GMT (Generic Mapping Tools), a command-line program widely used in Earth, Ocean, and Planetary Sciences, and beyond. It offers capabilities for spatial data processing (interpolation, filtering, masking, FFT, etc.) and for creating high-quality graphs and maps.

• QGIS is a Free and Open-Source Geographic Information System.

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SIGNAL PROCESSING​

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• Developed and created by the LIS laboratory (now a department of the GIPSA lab) associated with CNRS (National Center for Scientific Research), MUSTIG (Multidimensional Signals Tools for Interactive and Graphics) is an application intended for signal processing (experimenting with algorithms or teaching). This software is now distributed free of charge to industry professionals, engineers, scientists, and researchers.

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GENERAL

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• R is a free software environment for statistical computing and graphics. It compiles and runs on a wide variety of UNIX, Windows, and MacOS platforms. It offers many libraries for biostratigraphy, stratigraphy, geochemistry, hydrology. Some examples include: isoplotR (geochronology), streamDepletr (hydrology), FossilSim (taxonomy simulation), ETAS (seismicity modeling), stratigrapheR (stratigraphic data representation tool), RockFab (stress analysis in structural geology), Ternary (creating ternary diagrams), and many others.

• Plot is a 2D scientific plotting program (Mac).

• Inkscape is a free and open-source vector graphics software, perfect for creating graphics and illustrations in the geosciences. It allows users to design accurate maps, diagrams, and charts, thereby enhancing the visualization of geological and geophysical data.

• ImageMagick is a free software, including a library, as well as a set of command-line utilities, that allows creating, converting, modifying, and displaying images in a very wide range of formats.

• G'MIC developed at the University of Caen Normandy (laboratoire GREYC, UFR des Sciences) is a companion to ImageMagick.