ANALYZING INACCESSIBLE OUTCROPS IN AN INTERACTIVE GAMING ENVIRONMENT

Some field sites are too difficult, dangerous, or inaccessible to allow in-situ collection of high-quality structural data. However, geoscientists increasingly use photogrammetric models as teaching and research tools. An emerging, cutting-edge approach involves bringing geological models into a video-game environment where the ‘player’ (student or researcher) can view a 3D landscape or feature and interact with the model using in-game tools (Needle et al., 2022). For this project we hypothesized that research-quality data could be generated in a virtual environment, increasing the accessibility and safety of gathering structural geology measurements in precarious situations.

We selected a roadside outcrop near Kutztown, PA for which we have accurate transect locations and field-measured orientation data across a complex folded surface (Welker et al., 2019). We created a 3-dimensional photogrammetric model from ~200 photographs of the outcrop using Agisoft Metashape. We imported the model into Unity game generator and incorporated specialized structural geology measurement tools - the Structural Geology Query Toolkit developed by Needle et al. (2022). The result is an interactive, virtual outcrop where the user can measure lengths, angles, positions, profiles, and can measure and plot orientations of linear and planar geologic features.

To assess the quality of data that can be collected from the virtual outcrop, we measured orientations of the folded surface along the same transects published by Welker et al. (2019). Although matching the exact locations of measurements in the field with locations on the virtual outcrop was not possible, we found that data collected in the field and on our virtual outcrop were similar. These results suggest that the virtual environment can be used to gather research-quality structural data.

This virtual method of structural geology data collection has widespread applications particularly for difficult, dangerous, or inaccessible field sites – e.g. mine highwalls, cliffs, and roadside outcrops; and as an educational tool to introduce field data collection methods to students in a safe, controlled setting.