LAUSR

Abstract Rose diagrams are powerful tools for visually representing two-dimensional orientation (and other cyclic) data. The conventional practice of scaling the wedge radius to frequency leads to exaggeration of modal orientations and should be replaced by using wedges whose area is proportional to frequency (the equal-area wedge diagram). We outline a workflow in which the type of data (vectorial or axial), sample size and the degree of preferred orientation are used to control the type of plot (discrete or binned) and the parameters used for binning the data. This allows visual comparison of data using rose diagrams that are fit-for-purpose.