VISION FOR WEB-ACCESSIBLE 3D GEOLOGICAL MAPPING

People require geological mapping to fulfill their objectives related to health, heritage, safety, and economic development, and they expect public information to be web-accessible and readily usable. Maximum benefits will be conveyed if user interfaces are competing to make available an international database indicating known and predicted subsurface conditions, including consistent global mappping zoomable down to the most detailed coverage available, with links to the primary map. We therefore require a database depicting bathymetry, soils, onshore and offshore surficial and bedrock geology, and 3D geology depicting extent, thickness, and properties of undeformed strata, such that undeformed strata are removable from map depictions, and so that web-accessible drillhole forecasts down to deformed rocks can be issued for any point. Legacy maps therefore need to be digitized and reconciled, with multiple generations of legends being categorized with reference to a content analysis, and assembled with topography, bathymetry, offshore geology, soils, surficial geology, drillhole and geophysical data, bedrock maps, and existing stratigraphic models. New 3D mapping requires cored holes to be logged by geologists, geophysical surveys, and extrapolation laterally commonly uses large quantities of water well data of varying resolution and reliability. Modeling methods ideally use all data and an approach that permits judgment in the acceptance or rejection of data, while interpolation and extrapolation are guided by expert judgment based on the best available insights into process and history. Models are best captured as a regular grid of profiles that convey expert opinion on interpolation and extrapolation from the data points. Reconciliation of mapping with neighboring jurisdictions is required, as is balancing subjective definition of strata with more objective characterization of heterogeneous physical properties. Databases of observations and measurements can be retained with the interpreted model, and models can be assigned varying confidence levels such that the result is seen not as an end but a means for prioritizing new mapping. Pressing user requirements demand that geological survey work advance as rapidly as possible in this direction.