Facies and Classification Lists

Nine branches of the Collections Tree hold the classification schemes a project logs against. They are ordinary named lists: each entry has a name, a colour and often a symbol or icon, and the logging and interpretation tools offer the entries as choices. Setting them up once at the start of a study is what makes logs, panels and paint layers comparable across it.

Entries are added with New on the branch header and edited in the Properties panel. A whole scheme can be shared between projects with Export and Import on the branch header — a facies library is a .dfl file.

Branch	What the entries are	Where they are used
Facies	The project's facies scheme: name, colour and fill.	The active facies applies to each new log unit, and to paint overlay layers on a mesh. Create Colourmap on the branch header builds a colour map from the scheme.
Associations	Facies associations. Each association lists the facies assigned to it, shown as children in the tree. A facies joins one through its Association property.	A log's Facies Association track and its statistics, and the 3D log's Facies Association display. See Facies associations.
Grainsize	The grain-size scale: the classes down the log's grain-size axis.	The profile axis of a geological log, and the default grain size of a new unit.
Generic Classes	User-defined classification lists. Each list has its own entries, shown as children, by group; each entry has a colour, a symbol and a group, and a list's Values can grade the classes a bed holds by abundance or intensity. New List from Library on the branch header makes a list from a symbol library folder no other collection takes (structural geology, mineralisation, outcrop annotations...).	Any attribute of a log unit that the fixed lists do not cover, drawn as a class track: carbonate textures, mineralisation, alteration, structural features.
Base Contacts	The kinds of contact at the base of a unit: sharp, erosive, gradational, and so on. Each has a Line: straight, scalloped, wavy, dashed, dotted, zigzag or loaded.	The base-contact property of each log unit, drawn as its line along the bed's base (see Base contacts).
Lithologies	The lithology scheme. Add from Library fills it from the icon library's Lithology folders, if the library has any.	The lithology of a log unit.
Sed Structures	Sedimentary structures: ripples, cross-bedding, bioturbation, and so on. A new project starts with one for each symbol in the icon library's Sedimentary Structures folders.	Structures recorded against a log unit; drawn with the structure's icon.
Fill Patterns	The fill patterns a log unit can be drawn with. Rescan Fills on the branch header re-reads the fill files from disk.	How units are shaded in the 2D log and correlation panels.
Palaeo	Fossils and other palaeontological entries. A new project starts with one for each symbol in the icon library's Palaeontology folder (the FGDC Section 10 fossils in their groups: general, invertebrates, vertebrates, plants, trace fossils, microfossils), named from the file, such as Ammonoids.	Fossil occurrences recorded against a log unit; drawn with the fossil's icon.

Groups in Lithologies, Sed Structures and Palaeo

These three lists can run to hundreds of entries, so each entry has a Group, and the tree lists the entries in a folder for each group, in the library's order. An entry added from the library takes the name of the library sub-folder it came from, without the folder's number: 03_Cross_Bedding is Cross Bedding, and the two structure sets' Soft_Sediment_Deformation folders make one group. The entries of a project made before groups existed take theirs from their symbol (or a lithology's pattern fill) the next time the project is opened. To move an entry, set Group on its properties: choose one of the list's groups, type a new one, or choose (none) to keep it at the top of the list. The tree moves it straight away. Right-click a group folder for Add from Library. Groups are saved with the project and travel in a logging scheme.

See the Geological Logging guide for how these lists are used while logging, including the Defaults panel that sets what a new unit starts with and Replace Facies for changing a scheme after the fact.

Context menus

Every branch here shows the standard group menu on its header and the standard item menu on its entries, both listed on the Standard Item and Group Menus page. Some branches add a command of their own:

• Create Colourmap on Facies.
• Import Logging Scheme... and Export Logging Scheme... on Facies: all these lists in one .vrgsscheme.json file; see Logging schemes.
• Rescan Fills on Fill Patterns.
• New List from Library on Generic Classes: a list from a symbol library folder; see New List from Library.
• Add from Library on Palaeo, Sed Structures and Lithologies. It adds an entry for each symbol in the icon library's matching folder that the list does not already have, by name or by symbol. Only the library groups ticked under Icons are offered. Existing entries are left as they are, and the Messages panel reports how many were added. Use it to give a project made before this release the entries a new project starts with, or to pick up symbols added to the library since.