GIGA-INTELI-PIXEL-PALOOZA: CREATING AND ASSESSING EFFECTIVE USES OF DIGITAL OUTCROP MODELS IN GEOSCIENCE EDUCATION

Visualization and spatial thinking are fundamental skills across the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields. From introductory to advanced levels in earth science, skills like visual recall, penetrative visualization, perspective shifting, and spatial scaling are used to integrate complex observations into mental models. Digital outcrop models (DOMs) created with emerging technologies such as ground-based lidar scanning are the basis of a major new advance in the geosciences. Nevertheless, research on the use of DOMs as learning aids to support visualization and spatial thinking lags behind more applied research such as reservoir modeling, etc. Emerging imaging technologies can provide important teaching tools, but just as likely they have the potential to backfire with ‘technology overload’ in the classroom if used improperly. DOMs from nonmarine and marginal marine Cretaceous outcrops in southern Utah are used for both educational and research purposes in this project. Several learning modules are created and tested in graduate and undergraduate lab exercises, and these are also used as the basis for thesis research into petroleum reservoir analogs and sequence stratigraphy. The research specifically benefits from an interdisciplinary collaboration team including computer science visualization and GIS experts, as well as a psychologist who specializes in spatial cognition research. Results provide important guidelines for how best to combine research and teaching objectives using virtual outcrop reconstructions. We also test new ‘Intelipixel’ technology which avoids many problems with point-cloud datasets by incorporating spatial data from dGPS as well as RGB values in each pixel of the outcrop image. Gigapans provide an additional resource for outcrop visualization (using smart-panorama hardware and software), at a lower cost but without integrated spatial correction.