INTERSTATE COLLABORATION IN THE SOUTHEAST US – NEXT STEPS

With recent increases in NCGMP funding, State Geological Surveys are accelerating their mapping efforts. Although every state has their own objectives for this work, the increased mapping contributes to the USGS GeoFramework Initiative of a new digital national map. Eventually, states will have to address geologic issues of mapping and nomenclature with their neighboring states. Rather than wait for the problems to come to us and deal with them on an ad hoc basis, perhaps this Session is/has been an opportunity to initiate interstate communications, identify potential issues, and acknowledge significant gaps in current understanding.

There are two immediate problems that should be addressed: edge-matching issues with geologic maps, and stratigraphic usage across state lines. Given these problems, how do we approach them? Both are field-oriented tasks that are traditionally settled in the field. But increasingly, these issues require secondary analyses to fine-tune interpretations: age-dating using a variety of techniques, textural analyses, high-resolution mineralogy, geochemistry, and detailed geomorphic-topographic analyses using lidar. Not only does this require skills, which Surveys have, it also requires even more extensive funding. NCGMP through STATEMAP has increased in funding as reflected in the increased award ceiling. Additionally, NGMDB has provided new funding for projects such as the concepts proposed here. Other sources of developing relevant data include Earth MRI and NSF.

It is proposed that this session forms the basis for a Southeast working group that will address the issues presented and that will further the goals of interstate cooperation on mapping and stratigraphic usage.