CHARTING A PATH FORWARD FOR GEOLOGICAL MAPPING

At their Annual Meeting in Lexington, Kentucky, on June 11, 2014, members of the Association of American State Geologists unanimously passed a resolution that endorsed corresponding planning by USGS, and that asserted, to fulfill the essential role that geological surveys play in society, that we require optimal geological mapping that will progressively be more: focused on immediate user needs while accommodating unanticipated applications, and being designed with reference to ongoing statewide assessment of the status of databases and mapping; focused on the most detailed mapping where needed, while committed to statewide completion at an appropriate scale; reconciled with integrated, appropriate topographic and bathymetric data, integrated from onshore to offshore, and coordinated with soil mapping; based as needed on compilation ideally of all public domain drillhole and other relevant data, along with strategic drilling and newly acquired geochronology, geochemistry, and geophysics; based on sound stratigraphic naming, and categorized using broadly accepted query language; committed to regular updating of maps as science and technology progress, and assembled as statewide seamless compilations; 3D, in which the extent, thickness, and properties of all little-deformed sediment and rock units, and selected complex structural features such as faults and folds, are distinguished; coordinated with increasingly 3D versions of state, continental, and global-scale maps, while being fully accessible through robust and open-source software for conveying subsurface mapping; and linked to a complete compilation of scanned and searchable publications, as well as consistent and comprehensive geological, geophysical, and geochemical databases.