Earthquakes!

Visualizing earthquakes is pretty satisfying: they happen at a specific location and time, the global database extends back 100+ years, and they occur in a distinct spatial pattern that tells us a lot about the inner working of our planet. Here are three great visualizations:

1. As an animated map (1915 to 2015)
2. As a heatmap (1915 to 2015)
3. As a beautiful static map

Now...which data viz is the 'best'?

How about tremors over the past day, week, or month?
Or Understanding Earthquakes (based on 10 years of data)?

DownGlacier

Here's a nice example of open-source / community-reviewed / cutting-edge scientific research: The DownGlacier statistical downscaling tool that is used in a paper published in the open-access journal The Cryosphere - Discussion.

Projection Wizard

Give it at try! Projection Wizard

IMO - projections is one of these 'legacy' topics from 20+ years ago that geographers and cartographers still love to be obsessed with while the our software has made dealing with projections 99.5 percent unnecessary. Get over it folks!

I like this spatial pattern!

Liberals don't get married!

As opposed to people from Utah and southern Idaho - the spatial patterns are remarkable! More at How Your Hometown Affects Your Chances of Marriage

What's Warming The World?

What's Warming The World? by Bloomberg Business is a beautiful and subtle data visualization that answers the question that some folks still have problems with: what factors (= forcings) can account for the observed rise in temperature?

• Natural forcings (solar, orbital, volcanic): No!
• Human forcings (land use, ozone, aerosol pollution, GHG): Yes!

There is no new science here - these things have been known for quite a while, but the data viz is well-done. And minimalistic = letting the data to the talking.

Google Street View on El Cap

This has caused a lot of buzz on the web: Google slepped their Street View 'orb' up The Nose on El Cap and (as expected...) captured some pretty cool images. Somehow I'm not all that impressed - sure, this was a pretty big effort to do, but ultimately simply a function of throwing enough $$$ at it.

Have a look at Project 360 by Mammut for 360° experiences of the Eiger, Matterhorn, and other mountains.

This is mapping!

Sure - we all know that mapping means visualizing geospatial data and in the world of GIS that usually refers to spatial data dealing with 'geo' = the Earth (aka mapping at scales that we can walk around on). But, 'geo' also includes much smaller (or larger) scales and here are some great examples of 'mapping' really tiny things (via Maps Mania) using the Google Maps API:

• Interactive Metabolic Pathways Map
• NYU School of Medicine Virtual Microscope
• Human Hip Tissue
• The Genome Projector

Atlas by Quartz

Atlas is billed as a new platform for sharing and discovering great charts. You can search or explore different categories and then share the chart you found. Plus, usually, you can download the underlying data.

Happy Maps

Happy maps by Daniele Quercia is well-worth the 7:15 minutes, but if you are in a hurry:

• 3:30 to 5:23: Shortest vs. happiest vs. quietest vs. most beautiful path
• 6:40 to 7:15: A world fabricated for efficiency

Mapping Edges

One of the most-difficult to explain concepts in GIS is topology = the (quantitative) definition of spatial relationships between things. Maybe this helps: Socio-economic tectonics maps the differences between adjacent counties as interactive borders of different thickness.

More on R

In case you are interested - here are a bunch of resources and tutorials related to R.

1. Programming tools: Adventures with R
2. Swirl (= learn R in R)
3. R for cats
4. Intro to R (21-part video series)
5. Loading Data & Basic Formatting (via FlowingData)
6. Making a Heatmap with R (via FlowingData)
7. Spatial R = Mapping with R

Odd indeed...

Silent Spring

This is a great resource / story map / infographic: Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, A Book That Changed The World

Heat Maps in MS Excel

This is nothing (too) new - my colleague Mathias Vuille used MS Excel to 'map' GCM output 15 years ago - but Excel Map Hack gives a nice tutorial.

Sustainability - A History

This is a good book and the video the well-worth watching: Sustainability - A History

SoapBox Science

This is great: SoapBox Science!

How Do GHG Work?

Atlasify - The Geography of Everything

Atlasify maps (almost) anything for you - give it a try! (via Maps Mania)

Better Thematic Maps!

Yep...this does sound boring...but in-fact is one of the most useful tutorials I have yet seen about thematic mapping: Thematic Cartography Guide (as they say: short and friendly!)

Kids Map It!

This is fun and super-simple: Kids Map It

R

Well - R is great and here's a fun and informative video to tell you all about it:

Average Age in Germany

Interesting visualization, interesting patterns!

What Is Code?

This is intense (and rather long...), but an excellent introduction/overview of coding, programming languages, and data: What Is Code?

Baby Names

Better viewed full-screen: Little Waves of Baby Names

Mapping the Ocean

Here is an interesting quick video highlighting some of the issues associated with mapping an irregular 3-D object (= the Earth) in 2-D space (= on a map):

Looking for more examples? Have a look at Eight Projections or What Your Favorite Map Projection Says About You (by xkcd).