IMAGING EARTH'S SURFACE — A WEB–BASED ARCHIVE OF HIGH RESOLUTION GEOMORPHOLOGY IMAGERY

Looking for high-resolution imagery illustrating major geomorphological processes? Imaging Earth's Surface is a free, publically accessible web-based archive where you can find high quality, digital imagery to aid in teaching and learning about Geomorphology. It is available 24/7 free of charge from www.uvm.edu/geomorph/gallery. The web-archive currently holds about 1000 images and is growing daily. Images within the archive cover a wide range of topics including but not limited to geomorphologic tools, weathering & soils, hydrology, hillslopes, in-channel process, drainage basins, coastal & marine environments, glaciers, wind, tectonic and volcanic geomorphology as well as climate and landscape evolution. Imaging Earth's Surface provides a user-friendly interface with browsing and advanced searching functions that allow students and educators to quickly and easily find images illustrating major geomorphology topics. Images in the archive are accompanied with descriptions, keywords, and information about image ownership, increasing the usefulness of the images for teaching and scholarship. The web site is driven by a mySQL database and has extensive display capabilities including image zooming and an interface to Google maps for geo-locating imagery. The archive currently houses a collection of images from major public domain sites (such as the USGS), as well as from “for profit” entities and from personal collections of geomorphologists and other earth scientists. We encourage members of the community to upload and share their images with users of the archive, through the public upload capability. We urge the public to add comments or useful information to images already present in the archive relating to their field expertise. Imaging Earth's Surface is supported by a supplement to the NSF CCLI grant supporting Key Concepts in Geomorphology, a new style of textbook.