APPLICATIONS OF VIRTUAL ROCK OUTCROPS TO TEACHING AND RESEARCH WITH EXAMPLES FROM EASTERN WEST VIRGINIA AND THE MOHAWK VALLEY OF NEW YORK

The techniques of classical field geology are now being supplemented by the ability to rapidly create three-dimensional digital representations of rock outcrops using commercial photogrammetry software (e.g. AgiSoft Photoscan, Pix4D, VisualSFM). Three-dimensional virtual outcrops offer several enhancements to traditional field geology. First, online and offline sharing of virtual outcrops greatly improves the quality of communication and teaching of field geology. Virtual outcrops are an engaging way to introduce field geologists at all levels to the rocks they will see in the field. Second, virtual outcrops provide a digital archive by preserving the first-order geometries of bedding and other rock structures that will eventually be destroyed by natural erosion, vandalism, and other human activity. Third, creating digital representations of rock outcrops enhances the overall digital field workflow by providing ultra-high resolution three-dimensional topography and imagery that can be utilized for further analyses. The three-dimensional rock outcrops and associated imagery can be scaled to real dimensions and utilized for detailed measurements that would otherwise have required countless hours of surveying.

I present several examples of three-dimensional virtual rock outcrops created for the purposes of preservation, online education, and research. Many of the virtual outcrops are road cuts from “Corridor H”: a new highway in eastern West Virginia that beautifully exposes the Ordovician-Mississippian stratigraphy and subsequent Acadian and Alleghenian deformation in an approximately cross-strike section. The road cuts are heavily utilized by universities for geology field trips, making the virtual outcrops widely usable for teaching. I also outline a digital field workflow using virtual outcrops as a template for detailed fracture mapping. In this example, the workflow begins with the creation of a virtual outcrop of the Ordovician Utica Shale of upstate NY, which is utilized to create high resolution, orthorectified aerial and cross sectional images. Fracture traces digitized onto the orthorectified images are projected back to the three-dimensional model to fully characterize the connectivity of the fracture network.