The graph shows contoured fields generated from data scatters, overlain by scattered points. Contours are based on a density distribution estimated by the ggplot2 package, the data is simply xy.

R is an incredibly powerful programming tool used by a large community of people who require an easy to use, light weight, FREE, and fundamentally awesome statistics package! I have recently discovered that R can be used by geologists whose IT skills are often pitied by their more computer literate geophysicist colleagues. Long story short – if you are using excel on large data sets then you will more than likely find that using R is a much better solution for analysing and graphing your geochemical data.

Here are some useful links to get you started:

• The CRAN website for the R-Project
• CRAN Tutorials – An introduction to R
• Plotting with GGPLOT2– Very powerful and pretty graphing using R and the GGPLOT2 package

I’m still learning R myself, but when I come across useful things I very much intend to share them. This includes useful code for fellow igneous/metamorphic geochemists!