Plotting Focal mechanisms on a time plot

Q&A
1

Hi, I am trying to plot focal mechanisms on a timeline plot.
some sample data:

-103.98 -3.82 15.0 6.0 86.0 -162.0 275.0 72.0 -4.0 1.995262314968866428551168 24 -103.98 1980-02-06 650801_1980-02-06_12:21:2.2
-104.003 -3.959 23.4 5.0 76.0 171.0 97.0 82.0 14.0 2.818382931264426064478208 24 -104.003 1981-03-01 628995_1981-03-01_0:17:55.71

is there any reason why giving meca a -R and a -J option for a non-map plot shouldnt work?

gmt meca GCMT_QDG_Earthquakes5date_xyplot.txt -R-106.5/-102.0/1978-9-12T/2021-05-08T -JX6i/4i  -Sc1+f0p -A
2

I think meca uses the longitute and latitute to place the focal mechanism in the graph. In your case ca. -103 and -3. But in your graph you plot longitude vs time. So you could try to replace the latitudes with the times values.
I am not sure that it will work.

3

I think thats what the -A option does, which switches the plotting location to the coordinates in column 12,13, so I thought it would plot at -103.98, 1980-02-06

4

I make this figure with the following script. I couldn’t make a working script with -A and columns 12 and 13.

doc_meca
doc_meca759×527 6.84 KB

gmt begin doc_meca png
gmt basemap -R239/240/1984T/1984-01-10T -JX5c/4c -Baf
gmt meca -Sc1c << END
# lon date depth str dip slip st dip slip mant exp plon plat
239.384 1984-01-05T 12. 180 18 -88 0 72 -90 5.5 0 0 0
END
gmt end