I’ll describe here an easy way to pop one profile onto another – in this example overlaying a benzene profile on top of a stratigraphy profile.

1. Create your two profile diagrams using the same annotation settings and the same profile slice.  This assures that the profile panels will have the same coordinate range.  I find it helpful to arrange the two profile windows on my screen, one above the other, so that they are both accessible.

Arrange both profiles on your screen so they're both visible.

2. With the RockPlot Edit Arrow tool activated, click on the I-Data profile contours to select them. (Note the red selection handles in the panel corners in the upper image.) Type Ctrl+C to copy this layer into memory.

Click on the I-Data profile color contours to select that layer, and copy it to the clipboard.

3. Click in the Stratigraphy profile window and type Ctrl+V to paste the I-Data profile into this diagram.

Paste the I-Data panel onto the Stratigraphy profile

4. Double-click on the I-Data layer you just pasted into the combined diagram to adjust the minimum contour level and transparency, so that the stratigraphic layers will be visible in the background.

Adjust the minimum contour level and/or transparency.

5. Click OK to close the Colorfill Attributes window.

Now you can see the stratigraphic profile in the background.

6. If you like, you can copy /paste the I-Data color legend in to the combined diagram.  Use your mouse to resize/rearrange the legends as desired.

Combined Stratigraphy and Benzene Profiles

If you are trying to create a lithology model composed of horizontal beds that have been eroded and then overlain by a layer of soil, fill or even material such as concrete, you’ll often find that the horizontal lithoblending algorithm incorrectly places this upper layer of material below the sediments in some places.

One solution is to use some newer tools in the Lithology menu to create two separate Lithology models that can then be combined.  Here is an explanation of how this works.

Let’s start with the “Soil” layer at the top of the model.  First, it is important to assign a G-value to the Soil Lithology Type that is lower or higher than all the other material types.  In this case, the Soil material has been assigned a G-Value of 2.  All of the other material types have been assigned values between 3 and 8.

In the Lithology modeling tree menu, choose to create a model titled “Lithology Warped”.  Warp the model based on a grid that represents ground surface elevations, and turned off the “Randomize Blending” option to avoid interfingering of the soil and sand below.

While the representation of the sediments is probably not reasonable, I think that the soil layer at the top of the model looks much better in the diagram below than it does in the diagram above.

Next, create a model of just the flat lying sediments (in this example, the model is called “Lithology Sediments.mod”).  When creating this model, turn the Randomize Blending option back on, the warping option OFF, and tell the program to limit the model to just materials with G-Values between 3 and 8.

 As you can see in the diagram below, RockWorks has included everything except for Soil in this model.

Finally, use the Solid à Filter à Replacement Filter tool in the RockWorks Utilities, to insert the Soil in the warped model into the sediments model.

The diagram below displays this final model in a cross-section.

We hope you will find this new resource useful. Thank you for your interest in the Rockware, Inc. Blog.

Kind Regards,
The RockWare Team