Hi Mark,

I think on balance I'd council against deploying this with undergrads for
the time being. Using GPS for location is a no-brainer, but the danger with
using the rest of it is that the exercise begins to focus away from
understanding and collecting the field data towards driving the software. In
my view that should come later for students and the paper and pencil era
really is a good place to be in an undergrad field school. 

If a core objective of the school is later lab analysis of the data then the
balance tips slightly but not so much. I expect that the Durham folk would
take a more digital view, and are probably justified in field schools which
are data gathering intensive rather than a more classic 1:10,000 mapping
approach. 

The sort of qc and analysis process that I mentioned is really a bit
different, in that case we had a pile of data and interpretation which
clearly had be acquired without a geological context or framework model. We
had a number of possible framework scenarios in mind and wanted to rapidly
focus in on the most promising so that we could come up with a predictive
model which we could then base a more extended study around. 

With experience trying to teach undergrads and then in industry the key
weakness really lies in the basic field skills. I.e. answering: what is it?,
why is it?, how did it get like that? then the challenge of representing
that effectively on a map and in the notebook. - that was really the problem
in the FSSU case, they'd collected an astonishing shed load of stuff and
hadn't put it together. Really a case of less is more.

That said, there is a mid way which you might consider. Keep the field part
of the day fairly traditional and then use some of the available technology
in the evening write up time to high-light and discuss issues. For example
one of our academic users of our 2d structural package gets students to draw
cross sections in the field, snap them on a digital camera then stick them
into the software and see if they can reconstruct them, that takes I guess a
30 minute task to do it, and to have the inevitable discussion as to why
what they've drawn won't work and what the solutions might be eg, redraw the
fault, re-correlate the horizons, or go back to look for evidence of
transport direction/ strike slip the following day. At the end of the school
they have had a number of focused discussions on section / map interaction,
permissible structures a set of their own field drawings and traditional
maps plus their digital sections and DEM in 3-space with some ideas of
kinematics, so hopefully they are developing not just field skills but the
critical understanding of spatial and development geometry and of
uncertainty as well us a seeing the relative value of different bits of kit
ranging from field note books and maps to lap-top toys. The critical thing
is they've made their observations "taditionally" and are then using the
technology to test what they've done so that they can iterate. - doing this
on the fly takes a lot of confidence and you need to be fluent with the
software  otherwise you end up using field time reading the help manual. 

I guess my drum is that although most of you know I make my living out of
making and using software I feel very strongly that we have to be careful to
use the most appropriate technology at all times and that can and should
include paper and pencil stuff particularly as we learn principles. Equally
we should embrace technology when it is appropriate. Ultimately quality and
understanding given available time and money resource is what we are after
as scientists/technologists or whatever we call our selves. And the
diversity of view and experimentation is part of that. 

Hope this helps,

alan



-----Original Message-----
From: Tectonics & structural geology discussion list
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Mark P. Fischer
Sent: 25 July 2005 17:10
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: digital mapping

I have found everyone's comments on technology and field work very
interesting, but have not seen anyone address what I consider to be a key
issue.  For background, every summer I teach a traditional 6- week,
undergraduate geological field techniques course in Wyoming and South Dakota
(U.S.).  At present, we do not use a lot of "technology," other than GPS
units to help students locate themselves.  Several field schools in the U.S.
now use a lot of technology, including GPS, handheld GIS-enabled units
(e.g., ArcPad), and full GIS-based map creation.  These technology-based
classes are fairly popular, and as a department, we have been wondering
about going in that direction.

My question is whether using this technology (e.g., ArcPad) in the field
actually results in a better product, which in the case of our class, is
usually a geological map.  I also wonder about the time involved with using
this technology in the field.  In my experience, my time in the field is
very valuable.  It is costly, and I have to complete certain tasks within a
limited amount of time, which is also true for our class.  From working with
technology in the lab (e.g., constructing maps in ArcGIS), I find that this
is a very time- intensive task.  Unless using this technology in the field
greatly increased the quality of my final product, I cannot see that it
would be beneficial (i.e., cost-effective) to use my valuable field time to
do things that I could easily and more comfortably do in the lab, once I
return from the field.

Can anyone speak to the value-added aspect of doing things like GIS in the
field?  Obviously I understand that there are situations in which you need
high resolution and accuracy in your mapping (e.g., what Zoe mentioned about
differential GPS), and that there are benefits to QC-ing your work in
real-time (e.g., what Alan mentioned).  But for most projects, does the time
spent on this really increase the QUALITY of the final product enough to
warrant doing it?  Maybe I'm just not proficient enough with the technology,
but I can easily see how I might spend at least one quarter to  one third of
my time "in the field" playing around with the technology.

I'd be interested to hear from anyone with comments on this topic, --mark


"You think that's air you're breathing now?"
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