BUILDING THE INTERFACE FACILITY FOR CENTIMETER-SCALE, 3D DIGITAL FIELD GEOLOGY

The acquisition and analysis of field data is the cornerstone of the solid earth sciences and these data provide the context and content for most inquiries in geological sciences. Geoscientists have traditionally collected these data by analog methods (e.g., pencil, pen, and paper). A fully digital approach is critical, however, so that information is presented in a geospatially referenced frame for data transfer, scale and projection manipulation, and registration between datasets; this approach requires a cyberinfrastructure for the earth sciences. Geoscientists of the future will collect field data in a digital environment, which will consist of: equipment for acquiring information in a digital and georeferenced format; software that allows seamless transfer, integration, and exploration of data, and; online processing for manipulation of large datasets generated or to be used in the field. To implement the transition from the analog-dominated system of today to the digital future, we propose to build a facility consisting of a pool of shared hardware and software supported with instruction by expert users. This facility will allow users to build and work in a digital environment that represents the earth's surface/landscape in 3D with accuracy approaching the scale of a centimeter.