DEVELOPING THREE-DIMENSIONAL GEOLOGIC MAPPING IN THE GENTLY FOLDED PENNSYLVANIAN ROCKS IN NORTHERN WEST VIRGINIA

Several years ago the West Virginia Geological and Economic Survey's (WVGES) Coal Bed Mapping Program (CBMP) began developing a GIS-based mineral inventory for West Virginia. We subsequently developed a system to augment some of the CBMP products, notably the structure grids and contours, with further fieldwork, core logs, and GIS analysis to produce geologic maps of gently folded Pennsylvania rocks in northern West Virginia. The process we developed basically generates three-dimensional maps and reduces them to two dimensions to produce traditional paper geologic maps.

In responding to requests for geologic information, particularly those from non-geologists seeking environmental and hydrogeologic information, it is sometimes difficult and time consuming to help our customers visualize the information that is provided. Some have an interest in geology and native visualization ability and find the information and explanation fascinating and comprehensible. Others, with less interest and innate ability, find the experience frustrating, but eventually understand. Some neither understand nor have the time or patience to understand and go away dissatisfied.

To assist our customers in visualizing three-dimensional geologic information, we are developing a few standard off-the-shelf visualizations using commonly available commercial and open source software that incorporates the digital geologic information from our mapping process, available imagery, high-resolution digital elevation data, and other mineral resource information.

This paper will detail case studies and discuss how we have produced some simple visualizations.