GEOHIKES: IMPROVING ACCESSIBILITY OF GEOHERITAGE VIA DIGITAL CONSERVATION

Researchers focused on field-based public geoscience education face a number of challenges. For example, while sites containing significant geoheritage provide exceptional opportunities to introduce the public to the methods and findings of geoscience research, such sites are frequently located in remote and hard-to-access areas. This produces several barriers to entry, including physical barriers, financial barriers, and skill/experience-based barriers. In many ways mirroring the challenges associated with hard-to-access geosites, areas which are too easily accessible pose their own distinct challenges. For example, while publicly accessible fossil-bearing localities offer exceptional opportunities to introduce geoscience to the general public, increased visitation of these sites increases the risk of overcollection, vandalism, and unintentional damage. Here I explore the use of digital conservation techniques (e.g., LiDAR, 360-degree images and video) as a means to simultaneously improve accessibility of difficult-to-access geosites while insuring against information loss at easy-to-access geosites. In particular, I examine how portable tablet-based LiDAR can be used to quickly and easily create photogrammetric models of in-situ fossils, with implications for both public education and geoheritage conservation. Several Ontario-based case studies will be presented, including digital conservation efforts at Wainfleet Wetlands (a freely accessible Middle Devonian coral reef outcrop), Morgan's Point (a rare sand dune ecosystem near Lake Erie), and Devil's Monument (an inland flowerpot structure near the terminus of the Bruce Trail). Finally, the application of these digital conservation efforts within the proposed Niagara Geopark is discussed.