What landmarks can be used when traveling in space? The GPS reference satellite constellation uses a map of quasars to determine their location. That same map can guide spacecraft and be used to aim telescopes.
A diverse set of historical maps, reports, letters, and photos on mining in Arizona from the Arizona Geological Survey archives is now available online in the new “Arizona Mines” section of the Arizona Memory Project.
A new edition of “Survey Notes” has been released by the Utah Geological Survey. The focus of this issue is “Geologic Hazards”. Articles feature geologic hazards mapping, landslide inventory mapping, rock falls and lots more.
This image shows estimates of rainfall for the southeastern United States from September 14–21 produced by the near-real-time, multi-satellite precipitation analysis at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. The highest rainfall amounts—more than 300 millimeters —appear in blue. The lightest amounts appear in pale green. Especially intense rainfall occurred in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and northern Florida. Quoted from the Earth Observatory image release.
The Google Earth Blog reports that the new 5.1 release of Google Earth is much faster to load and perform. In addition there are several other major improvements.
Insurance companies providing homeowners coverage in Hawaii have used USGS maps to set their rates for a long time. Now some companies are modifying rates or dropping coverage and homeowners want to know if the lava flow hazard maps – which were made 35 years ago – still represent the hazard accurately.
Here is a website where you can download and print an unlimited number of state maps for students. For all fifty US states there are county maps, cities maps and outline maps.
Last month two German ships began sailing through the Northeast Passage, a normally-frozen seaway that that links the Pacific Ocean to northern Europe along the Russian Arctic coast. The ships are the first to complete this route which in the past has been considered impossible.
Homicide Map
September 8, 2009 | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
This isn’t geology, but instead an interesting mapping application. A Pittsburgh newspaper provides a map of recent homicides that have occurred in the city. Using the map you can see geographic trends in homicides by cause, race and gender. Similar maps are being made for other types of crime and they share the geographic trends of crime with the public. The maps are relatively easy to make and could be a good communication tool for sharing the location of geologic hazards with the public – if you have a latitude/longitude database of incidences.
The Utah Geological Survey created a three-dimensional visualization of their geologic map of the St. George 30′ x 60′ quadrangle in southwest Utah. This visualization utilizes Google Earth to create interactivity and dramatically show the relationship between geology and topography.
I just learned “Survey Notes” is an interesting non-technical magazine published by the Utah Geological Survey. Check it out. The current issue contains articles on…
* What is the Biggest Natural Arch in the World?
* Ancient Landslides of the Beaver Dam Mountains
* Virtual Geologic Map Overlays
* Energy News
* Geosights: Wall Arch, a Fallen Giant
* Survey News
* Teacher’s Corner
* New Publications
You can now download a detailed geologic map of Pennsylvania as a .pdf document. This is a scanned copy of the paper 1:250,000-scale bedrock geology map in three sheets (each as a separate .pdf document). State geologic map GIS datasets are also available.
Google Earth can be a great program to use in the classroom for both lecture demonstrations and student investigations. Google has a getting-started page with links to a number of resources. Google maps provide another opportunity for interactive learning.
“American and Canadian scientists are working to map the Arctic seafloor and gather data to help define the outer limits of the continental shelf. This mission will emphasize the region north of Alaska onto Alpha-Mendeleev Ridge and eastwards toward the Canada Archipelago. This is the second year the United States and Canada have collaborated in extended continental shelf data collection in the Arctic. Both countries plan to work together again in 2010.” Quoted from the USGS News Release.
Mercury is a global pollutant that ultimately makes its way into every aquatic ecosystem through the hydrologic cycle. USGS published a study that examined mercury in top-predator fish, bed sediment, and water from streams across the United States.
USGS now has a website for online viewing of Vegetation Drought Response Index (VegDRI) maps. “VegDRI integrates time-series observations of vegetation with climate, land cover-land use type, ecological setting, and soil characteristics to show drought’s effect on vegetation at a 1-kilometer resolution.” The map is updated every two weeks.
USGS has published a new 1:100,000 scale “Geologic Map of the Estes Park 30’ x 60’ Quadrangle, North-Central Colorado” as USGS Scientific Investigations Map 3039.
Earth Observatory has a series of images that document current drought conditions in a region south of the Sahara Desert known as the Sahel. Poor vegetation growth, food shortages and water shortages are now problems in this area.
Quoted from the National Academy of Sciences: “Significant loss of life, destroyed property and businesses, and repairs to infrastructure could be avoided by replacing Federal Emergency Management Agency flood maps with ones that contain high-accuracy and high-resolution land surface elevation data, says a new report from the National Research Council.”
NASA and Japan released a new digital topographic map of the world. They report that it is the most complete topographic map of Earth ever made, covering high latitude areas omitted on other maps and using a data point spacing of 30 meters.
If you use a GPS in your car you probably have encountered the frustration of inaccurate maps. For the past few years most GPS makers have offered updated maps that you can download from the web and load into your GPS via a USB cable. The problem: these map updates were expensive and were out-of-date by the time you load them – or they had errors that would be fixed in the next edition. Garmin finally has a good idea and is offering “lifetime downloads” for a price that is just a little over the cost of a single map update. Now you can download updated maps for as long as the GPS is in your possession and working.
USGS has launched the “Digital Map – Beta” which is a new generation of topographic maps that can be downloaded from the web and viewed on your computer as GeoPDF documents.
“The World Stress Map is the global compilation of information on the present-day stress field of the Earth’s crust with 21,750 stress data records in its current WSM database release 2008.” Quoted from the WSM website.
USGS, in cooperation with the British Antarctic Survey, the Scott Polar Research Institute, and the Bundesamt für Kartographie und Geodäsie have released:
“Coastal-Change and Glaciological Map of the Larsen Ice Shelf Area, Antarctica: 1940–2005″.
The American Geological Institute has a new Geoscience Currents on their website. This one reports on geoscience and science and engineering employment at the state level with maps showing the geographic distribution of science and engineering employment.
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Hobart King
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