I HOPE IT FLIES! THE USE OF REAL TIME AIRBORNE IMAGES AND 3D DATA IN FIELD CAMP EDUCATION

The availability of UAVs and dedicated software to manipulate airborne data is opening new possibilities for field camp education with the possibility of real time acquisition of airborne images to produce orthoimages and DEMs.

In 2017 Lehigh University Field Camp incorporated the use of UAVs into its curriculum allowing students to take advantage of high resolution topography, up to date aerial images and 3D models.

I present three examples of application of UAV technology in aid of a complex structural geology setting mapping and subsurface interpretation, of surficial mapping of river terraces and of age modeling of fault scarps. The data, acquired with a commercial UAV, and processed through a commercial software in the field, have proven to be extremely useful for the better understanding of the geologic problem at hand and the successful completion of each project.

In the absence of publicly available high resolution topography the possibility of generating detailed topographic bases has greatly increased the accuracy of geologic mapping. 3D models and DEMs have been successfully used as a “virtual groundtruth”, and to extract geomorphologic parameters and metrics for paleohydrology reconstructions as well as topographic profiles for fault scarp age modeling.