User’s guide to “Maps of Denmark”

Since I came to Denmark five years ago, I have been using GIS and the maps produced by the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS) on a daily basis. Most of the times, though, I got the shape files either directly from someone working in GEUS, or from someone in university, who got them from GEUS. So, except for teaching, I have rarely used the interactive web services provided by GEUS.

I got really excited recently, because I found out that next to the interactive web version of JUPITER (the Danish geological, geotechnical, and hydrogeological database), now there are also two new (at least for me) interactive tools called “Maps of Denmark” and “Groundwater analyses“. The “Maps of Denmark” (Fig. 1) is a nice collection of maps, some of which can be found also at the The Danish Natural Environment Portal (dk: Danmarks Miljøportal), while “Groundwater analyses” is definitely a new tool, presumably based on the water chemistry data from JUPITER. I find both of these web tools quite useful, so I will present the “Maps of Denmark” in this post, and the “Groundwater analyses” will follow in another blog-post.

All map layers come with legend and some additional information (next to the thick box, “i” for information and “L” for legend). Unfortunately, for those who don’t understand Danish, the additional information and the legend are not translated to English in the general case. Nevertheless, sometimes links to published descriptions are given in the info section, and those may have at least abstract in English.

The map layers are divided in four groups:

[tab]

[tab_item title=”Background / more layers“]

There is an option to chose one from:

• Topographic
• Topographic (gray)
• Orto photo
• Bathymetry (incl. legend)
• No background

And, one or more from:

• Exclusive economic zone (EEZ) border
• Coast line
• Hill shade
• Degree grid
• Soil Map 1:200000 (exists also as layer in “Denmark”)

For example, the “topographic” background layer is the default one (see Fig. 1), while in Fig. 2, I have chosen “no background”, “hill shade”, “degree grid”, and “EEZ border”. The background layers are only for visualization purposes, though, if you use the tools (e.g. full screen, save image, save image as KML), you get nothing.

[/tab_item]

[tab_item title=”Denmark“]

There are 15 maps you can chose from in this category:

• Soil map in scale 1:200 000
• Soil map in scale 1:25 000
• Drinking water hardness (average dH at municipality level)
• Morphology (only Eastern Denmark, which included the island Bornholm)
• Redox depth (depth to the nitrate redox front)
• Nitrogen retention map
• Sea bed sediment type in scale 1:250 000
• Ice margin and ice melting (last glaciation)
• Pre-Quaternary topography
• Pre-Quaternary geology of Bornholm
• Pre-Quaternary surface geology (as published in Varv)
• Height and Depth map
• Top-chalk surface of the Danish area
• Gravimetry map
• Map frames (the system used for numbering the paper maps)

There is also an option to control the opacity levels of the maps as well of the background maps. I have demonstrated it with the “height and depth map” and the “hill shade” from the background maps.

[/tab_item]

[tab_item title=”The Danish Basin“]

Six maps are available:

• Top chalk
• Chalk group thickness
• Base chalk
• Jurassic-Lower Cretaceous
• Top Triassic
• Top Pre-Zechstein depth

[/tab_item]

[tab_item title=”The Danish Central Graben“]

There is quite a lot going on in the Danish part of the Central Graben; some info can be found at the site of Danish Energy Agency. There are seven maps in this category:

• Top Chalk
• Chalk group thickness
• Base chalk
• Cromer Knoll group
• Base Cretaceous
• Base Upper Jurassic
• Upper Jurassic thickness

[/tab_item]

[/tab]

It is possible to add some short descriptions of each layer later on, if there is any interest. I think for now I’ll keep it to the basics, namely to the choice of maps you have (see above). what you can do with these maps, next to viewing them is: save image, save image as KLM, and some WMS/WFS services. I haven’t used the WMS/WFS, so can’t say anything about it yet.