HOW WILL WE DELIVER GEOSCIENCE DATA AND INFORMATION IN 2015?: TRENDS, CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES

In a remarkably short period of time hand-held electronic devices have evolved from offering merely mobile telephony to become mobile platforms capable of running sophisticated and diverse software applications. Continuing improvements in mobile network coverage and bandwidth mean that data connectivity will cease steadily to be a significant major barrier to mobile applications that require high rates of data streaming. Together these factors have resulted in an explosion of mobile device usage which the industry predicts will continue to grow at staggering rates over the next few years.

The British Geological Survey launched its first mobile app – iGeology - in September 2010, and its first mobile crowd-sourcing application in July 2011. While the detailed usage patterns of traditional map data has always been difficult to monitor, the delivery of digital data-sets to mobile devices enables gathering and analysis of data that reveal some surprising patterns of use. In less than a year the iGeology mobile application has resulted in at least a four-fold increase in the use of the BGS’s geologic map data, and has revolutionised the BGS’s approach to the delivery of digital geoscience data and information. This presentation examines how the community of geological surveys and mapping agencies has responded to the ‘mobile revolution’. The major technological trends that underpin this revolution provide strong indicators to the challenges and opportunities that will shape the way the geoscience data and information will be delivered in 2015.