THE USGS NATIONAL COOPERATIVE GEOLOGIC MAPPING PROGRAM’S U.S. GEOFRAMEWORK INITIATIVE: INCORPORATING A GEOHERITAGE LAYER WITH A NEW NATIONAL 2D AND 3D GEOLOGIC FRAMEWORK MODEL

The U.S. Geological Survey’s National Cooperative Geologic Mapping Program (NCGMP) was established in response to the National Geologic Mapping Act of 1992. The purpose of the Act was to “...enhance geologic mapping of the United States...” and to provide a geologic map database for the Nation. More recently, additional Congressional funding was provided to the NCGMP to accelerate Phase 3 of the National Geologic Map Database and construct a seamless and queryable 2D and 3D geoframework of the Nation, also known as the U.S. GeoFramework Initiative. The U.S. GeoFramework Initiative will produce products that provide information to stakeholders and the American public on issues such as groundwater protection, mineral resources, hazards, energy storage, and other earth science issues. To provide relevant information to even more stakeholders, the NCGMP plans to incorporate a geoheritage layer into this national geoframework model and recently began funding work related to this effort in Fiscal Year 2022 including a Workshop in May 2022 involving selected Federal, Tribal, State, and academic partners. The Project will begin by inventorying existing, publicly available Federal datasets and incorporating data from State Geological Surveys via the STATEMAP Program. These data will be compiled and evaluated to develop geoheritage attribute selection criteria based on scientific and societal values related to geologically significant sites. The Project will work with geoheritage subject-matter experts from a variety of backgrounds, including from underserved communities, to create a holistic approach to identifying geoheritage sites, gathering associated information, and organizing data into a queryable database schema displayed as a geospatial product. The goal is to provide stakeholder driven, crowdsourced data to the public, with relevant information to expand the interest of the American public in topics such as geology, geologic maps, and Earth science.