A 3D PHOTOREALISTIC APPROACH TO THE ANALYSIS OF THE DEPOSTIONAL ELEMENTS OF THE PENNSYLVANIAN DELTAIC BREATHITT GROUP, PIKEVILLE, KENTUCKY

Three Dimensional digital mapping of outcrops provide a robust and flexible dataset that can be saved and archived to be re-interpreted multiple times subsequent to data collection. Specific digital analysis tools have been developed mainly for structural geology to analyze 3D photorealistic models of geology created at UTD. Three dimensional extraction tools for digital outcrop models of sedimentary features are being developed and tested on a site in the western Kentucky Appalachians, the Pennsylvanian deltaic outcrop of Breathitt Group, on an ArcGIS platform with the University of South Carolina to extract individual architecture elements in 3D from sedimentary outcrops for a more effective interpretation. This Appalachian road-cut shows a wide variation of facies and a multitude of heterogeneities represented within channel complex systems, which is a challenge to map and analyze quantitatively in only 2D. At least 30 channels and associated facies of different scales have been identified. The crescent (arc) shaped outcrop is about 1.5 km in length and 20 m in thickness which can lend itself to 3D digital analysis at small and large scales. The outcrop’s small thickness relative to its length makes it difficult to manually correlate the architecture and facies through the entire outcrop and it is a dilemma as to how to display the features at scales from centimeters to kilometers. Hypotheses have been formulated which cannot be effectively tested without 3D quantitative information. Much of the outcrop has now been preliminarily captured by a UTD/USC team using integrated GPS, laser scanning 10 sites, 118 and 231 digital photographs with 24 and 105 mm lenses respectively. The high quality and resolution 3D model is being built and analyzed with our standalone ‘graphic tools’ on an ArcGIS platform to identify the various architectural elements used in the interpretation of the sedimentary depositional settings. Centimeter to kilometer scale features are being defined, digitized, extracted and analyzed as 3D models consisting of the photorealistic terrain surfaces bounded with geometries consisting of surfaces fit to the data. Therefore the various elements can then be placed in a lateral, vertical, and time context.