THE EXTENT OF GEOLOGIC MAP DATA'S IMPACT ON THE U.S. ECONOMY

The American Geosciences Institute conducted a survey in early 2018 of a spectrum of working geoscience professionals about their use of geologic map data in their professional work, as well as sourcing, quality control processes, and the means in which the data was used to impact the U.S. economy. The class of geologic map data was defined from the US National Atlas data categories and the economic sectors were identified by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis' sectorial analysis of US GDP. A key trend identified was an overwhelming dependency on USGS and state geological survey data, which were also universally considered highly reliable. In addition, most geoscientists report that doing their own mapping was a major source of data, often because of lack of available reliable data or that existing data was not to a sufficient scale. In addition, the applications that geologic map data was used impacted almost all sectors of the US economy, with sectors representing 85% of the U.S. economy showing some level of application of geologic map data. When examining trends by employing industry of geoscientists, the data types and sources used were substantially similar across all employment sectors except for individuals working in academia. A number of interesting trends and observations provided in the narrative responses about quality control and data search and discovery approaches will also be discussed, especially regarding how data use is tiered within the activities by stage of research and quality.