GEOLOGY AS PLACE: A PROJECT IN CENTRAL KENTUCKY

Geoscientists commonly use both quantitative and qualitative data to describe the Earth and its processes. But data can take many forms. This so-called Kentucky Project is the personal project of a geoscientist who has collected various types of data over decades: personal experience, archival historical records, paper and digital maps among others to document a particular place, the edge of the Bluegrass physiologic region abutting the Knobs. These two regions are diverse in geology, landscape, and culture.

Central Kentucky’s Lincoln County is a particularly good space to study the concept of place as various types of data are available. Its recorded history of settlement from 1790 is preserved in its county courthouse; the author’s relationship with the land dates from the 1950’s; and archival and new geologic data are publicly accessible through GIS tools at the Kentucky Geological Survey. The author has built a Storymap of Lincoln County with geology as its central concept. A broad audience, particularly those living in Kentucky, might be interested in this story.