March 13, 2015

Episode 8 - "Canal Side Geologist" Making Maps

42 minutes

What is a geologic map?

Conveys many sorts of geologic information

The whole basis of field geology

Can be a surface,bedrock, subsurface, resource, soil, etc. map

Making the Map

Start off with your field gear…like we talked about in episode 2. We said episode 1 in the show, but that was wrong!

Have a base map (Geomorphologic map—we call these topos)…you need to know where you are at

You can use an iPad/GPS with pre-loaded topo maps, or you just have your paper basemap.

John likes the Garmin 62S GPS unit

You don’t want to become too reliant technology in the field because it could be a life or death situation

You need to have done your research before you go

History of geologic maps

Book: The map that changed the world, by Simon Winchester

1793 [William Smith](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Smith_(geologist), who was a surveyor working for canal builders, was paying attention to all the layers of rock that he was digging through

He noticed that he could trace the different layers of rock that were stacked on each other

He also noticed the different fossils inside them meant that the rocks were the same age and could be traced all over

Would study coal seams, which could be easily traced and spent much time in coal mines all over England

His work was highly plagiarized, causing him to go bankrupt and into debtor’s prison

Bestowed the Wollaston Medal by the Geological Society of London in 1831

Known as the father of English geology

Modern Tools

USGS mapview

Aerial Photos

Drones

Fun Paper Friday

This week we go over a paper that discusses one of Shannon’s favorite sayings: All Models Are Wrong, but Some Are Useful, Field (2015)

Three main points:

1) “Given all models are wrong, what we really hope is that any new model is more useful than its predecessors and that the value added exceeds the total development costs.”

2) “It still remains to be seen how long we will need to wait for definitive results on usefulness under various conditions.”

3) “Not only are all models wrong, but their relative usefulness varies depending on location and the specific loss metric of interest.”

Show - www.dontpanicgeocast.com - @dontpanicgeo - [email protected]

John Leeman - www.johnrleeman.com - @geo_leeman

Shannon Dulin - @ShannonDulin

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By John Leeman and Shannon Dulin

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