DISCOVERING PLATE TECTONICS USING USGS EARTHQUAKE DATA IN ARCMAP™ AND 3D VIEWS IN ARCSCENE™

The Physical Geology course at Delaware County Community College includes geology majors, science majors and non science students getting their science credit. In an effort to give the students an opportunity to study an area of interest, or explore concepts in greater depth we did an extra project or field experience. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is a recommended skill for the geosciences, environmental as well as other field sciences. The basic use of ArcMap has been incorporated into the physical geology course as an introduction to GIS. This year a group of students went beyond the basics of using ArcMap and developed a method for extracting earthquake data from the USGS Earthquake website. The data was then imported into ArcMAP to study the relationship of earthquakes to plate boundaries. Then the earthquake locations along with the depths were imported into ArcScene for more advance process of building a 3D model of the various types of plate boundaries. Student discovered how geologists developed the theory of plate tectonics and determined the processes of the different boundary types.

This presentation shows the steps taken to extract the data from the USGS Earthquake website to building maps and 3D visualizations of the plate tectonic boundaries. By processing real world data the student will discover for themselves the relationship of earthquakes and the different types of plate boundaries. This allows the students to gain a better understanding of how geology works.