Grant Boxer's QGIS Pages

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QGIS for Geology and the Geosciences


QGIS

QGIS is a free GIS program. It is open source and completely free to use. See the QGIS website here. If you like what you've seen here and would like me to run a training course, get in touch! I run both face-to-face and online training and the content can be modified to suit your requirements.

The images below show some of what can be easily displayed using QGIS.

Sentinel 2 images over the Argyle mine 3D view of Argyle geology


QGIS and Geology


I have been using QGIS for a number of years now and now use it almost exclusively in my consulting work. I was a MapInfo-Discover user for about 20 years but have now moved exclusively to using QGIS. QGIS has developed significantly over the past few years and now is a viable alternative to the commercially available GIS packages.

Using QGIS in Mineral Exploration I have been running QGIS training courses for geologists over the past few years for the Australian Institute of Geoscientists (AIG) and other organisations. As a spin-off of these training courses is that I had compiled a user manual for geologists and geoscientists. This is freely available in PDF and HTML formats at this web link, please feel free to share. The manual contains information that is not easily located on the web such as plotting rotated structure symbols and using USGS symbols and geological pattern fills. Other sections cover the import and display of geochemical and geophysical data and the selection and processing of remote sensing data such as ASTER and Sentinel 2 images.


For a video introduction to QGIS and to how to use QGIS in geology and mineral exploration, see this video (40 mins). I recommend you view it in 1080 pixel resolution if your bandwidth permits.



The official QGIS user manual is available from here.

Official

One of the strengths of QGIS is the ability to utilise external font styles and patterns. Geological symbols and pattern fills from the USGS have been converted to SVG (scaled vector graphics) files. A full description of the USGS patterns and symbols can be found here.


I have created a series of print layout templates for A0, A1, A2, A3 and A4 in landscape and portrait orientations and these can be downloaded from here.

I have created this page with information on SVG (scaled vector graphics) files and their use in QGIS.

If you would like to contact me please use email address boxerg at iinet dot net dot au.