Ms Fern

[Fern]

Hi,

I have succesfully plotted piper and stiff diagrams and would also like to plot Gibbs diagram. Does the GWB student version allow me to do so or is it only available with the full version. If so, do I purchase the professional, standard or essentials version? Thanks.

[Jia Wang]

Hello Fern,

The GWB doesn’t have a Gibbs diagram default setting. I can’t think of another software off the top of my head that does it by default. However, it is pretty easy to define a user equation in GSS to calculate the component concentration ratio (e.g. (Ca/(Ca+Na)) and plot that value against the measured TDS value in a Cross plot. The cross plot can be exported to Powerpoint or other photo editor and draw in the dominance zones manually for the Gibbs diagram. 

For more information on how to define user equations in GSS and plotting cross plots, please refer to sections 3.3.5 and 3.6 of the GWB Essentials user guide.

Hope this helps,
Jia Wang

[Fern]

Hello Jia Wang!

Thank you so much for your response. I have done just that and it has worked beautifully.

I was wondering if you can help with 2 other questions.

I've successfully plotted piper diagrams and would like to extract the values used to plot the diamond in the piper plot. How do i access these values within GWB Student version? Do i have to purchase the full version in order to access it? At the moment, all we have is a piper diagram, with no actual values to be stored in a spreadsheet. I am hoping to have the values presented in columns, so my colleague can use them for another project.

I have also successfully plotted Stiff plots but I'd like to tell GWB Student edition to plot them in a specific array in order to save space for journal publication. At the moment, i can tell it the maximum number of samples to plot and it would spit it out in a specific array. Is it possible to plot them all in vertical strips. For eg, if I have 6 samples to plot, GWB may plot the stiff plots in an array of 3x2 (3 across, 2 down) or 6x1 (6 samples horizontally in 1 line). But I'd like them to be plotted 1x6 (all 6 samples appearing vertically, in a column like fashion.

Again, are all these functions restricted in the student version? I wouldn't mind purchasing the full version (professional/standard/essential) in order to gain access to the full suite of the software as well as have the watermark removed.

Thank you in advance to anyone that can provide some advice.

[Jia Wang]

Hello Fern,

You can retrieve the numerical values from the Piper diagram by copying and pasting. Go to "Edit" and mouse over "Copy as" and select either the spreadsheet format or text format. You can paste it in an editor corresponding to that format. Please see section 8.5 Exporting plot in the GWB Essentials user guide for more details. 

The specific array size for stiff diagram plots cannot be set. However, you can configure the colors, labels, and plot size for an individual stiff diagram in Gtplot and then copy and paste it into a PowerPoint to rearrange according to your needs. To see more details, please see section 8.2 Editing plot appearance in the GWB Essentials user guide. 

All the features I described above are available in the Student Edition and all tiers of The GWB software package. With regards to the watermark, you can remove the watermark if you copy and paste the image into Powerpoint and ungroup the shape objects. You can select the watermark to delete it if you wish. The Essentials, Standard, and Professional package of the GWB does not have the watermark by default. If you are interested in a GWB subscription, please let me know and I will be happy to send you a quote or a demo. 

Hope this helps,
Jia

 

[Fern]

Hi Jia,

Thank you so much for all your help. I managed to retrieve the numerical values from Piper as per your advice. It gives me the same raw data that i entered into GSS prior to plotting the Piper diagrams. I realised however that it may not be as helpful as i thought it would be to achieve what i want.

I have plotted the piper diagrams for several groundwater bores over a period of 1 year( see attached examples of  Mid DS72, Mid DS24, Mid DS17West and Mid DS17East). Based on the piper groundwater chemistry classification diagram (also attached), I would like to then superimpose all the diamond plots on top of one another so that I can replace the plots with just the name of the bore (rather than the individual points). So I would identify where the average cluster is for a certain bore, and add a text box at that spot to type the name of the bore.  I thought that retrieving the numerical values could help me replot the image but it's trickier than i thought.

See attached image of how I need to superimpose the diamond plots in order the replace the average points of each bore with just the name of the bore. This allows us to accurately visualise where each bore sits within the 4 groundwater classification groups.

The way I have done it is to ensure each piper diamond plot is the same size as the final diamond plot with the bore name. I then superimpose the final diamond plot on the individual diamond plot, change the transparency to 100% and add a text box to type in the name of the bore. Repeat with all the other bores. It does the job but it's not a very professional way of doing it, particularly for a journal paper.

Do you have any suggestions on how i can superimpose it using the software?

Many thanks in advance Jia.

 

 

 

Geochemist Forum question.docx

[Jia Wang]

Hello Fern,

Gtplot does not support superimposing plots in the way you are suggesting. However, if you would like a cleaner way of plotting it, I would suggest for you to enter the average values for each borehole in a new GSS spreadsheet and use the corresponding borehole name as the Sample ID. When you create your piper diagram, you can then export your plot to powerpoint and edit the appearance to delete the markers. FYI, when you paste the images as enhanced metafiles in powerpoint, you can ungroup the plot to manipulate individual objects (characters, points, shapes, etc) on your plot. For more information on exporting plots, please see section 8.5 in the GWB Essentials user guide. 

I also want to point out that the copy and pasted values from piper diagrams are equivalent fractions, concentrations in meq/kg divided by the sum of the equivalent concentrations of the cations or anions on the diagram, and not the same as the raw concentrations. If these values do not help you, you can also use the mixing feature in GSS to calculate an average composition of your fluid for each borehole. For more information on fluid mixing in GSS, please refer to section 3.4.4 In the GWB Essentials user guide.

Hope this helps,
Jia 

[Fern]

Thanks Jia!

That is a BRILLIANT suggestion!

Another question about axis scale 0-100 direction.

When plotting Piper diagrams, the anion ternary diagram ( bottom right ternary plot in a piper diagram)shows the 0-100 axis in a anti-clockwise fashion. However, when the same anion ternary diagram is plotted on it's own, the 0-100 axis flips to a clockwise direction.  At first glance, the anion ternary plotted using both methods seem to show different bore positions. However, upon closer inspection, the values are correct ( the bore positions have simply swapped because the axis direction has changed. Technically, we are not presenting any wrong information but i would love to be able to swap the direction of the axis from clockwise to anti clockwise, so that it's standardised with piper diagram presentation. Please tell me this is possible and if so, how do we do it?

Example of a piper plot and individual anion as well as cation ternary diagram for the same bore called DS0 are attached. Note the swapped directions of axis scale for the ternary anion versus piper anion, thus displaying different bore locations in both the piper and ternary diagrams. This is however, not observed with the ternary cation plot. Ternary cation is included to show how the axis scale direction stays the same, and hence the bore locations in both the piper and ternary don't differ.

Thanks so much Jia.

 

[Jia Wang]

Hello Fern,

I am glad you find the suggestions helpful. There's no way to reverse the axis like you described above but I don't think that's the primary issue here. The sample data locations are different between your piper diagram and anion ternary plot because the components selected for each vertex of the triangle and your units are different. In Mid DS0 Anion, the top, bottom left, and bottom right vertices represents 100% meq HCO3-, 100% meq Cl -, and 100% meq SO4-- respectively. In the piper plot, the top, bottom left, and bottom right vertices represents 100% meq/kg SO4--, 100% meq/kg HCO3- + CO3--, and 100% meq/kg Cl- respectively. If you want the location of your sample data points to match between the ternary plots in the piper diagram and the ternary plots you make, you need to select the component at each of the vertex of the triangle to match and display in the same unit (e.g. %meq/kg). You can change the components at each vertex of the ternary plot (not the piper diagram) in the parameters dialog. To get to this dialog, double click on your ternary plot. After doing so, your plots should show the sample data points at the same location. You can relabel your axis anti-clockwise to show the same labels as the piper diagrams manually in powerpoint or a similar program of your choice.

Hope this helps,
Jia