3 ms·

So much potential to make something far more interactive and integrated for education and outreach. Tying together map layers, map commentary, deposit descript

So much potential to make something far more interactive and integrated for education and outreach. Tying together map layers, map commentary, deposit descriptions, interactive vocabulary aids with photographs, history descriptions, timeline, and more. Site and close-up photos, videos and 360's. StreetViews and peoples' scenic photos - Google VR Earth. Stories and art. XR 3D site captures and in-hand XR models. XR regional cross-sectional models - seeing crust and mantle structure beneath your feet. And then there's shallow but broad - "I see you are surfing from near Mumble, XX N XX W. Let me tell you the amazing deep-time story of the rocks you're standing on...". Ah well, eventually, some decade.

082349872349872 6y ago
Traditionally field geologists (with the notable exception of the oil exploration kind) have been paid in scenery instead of in scrip. IOW: excellent idea, when do you start?
- mncharity 6y ago
  > when do you start? <Bemused look> Err... I've penciled it in, right after transformatively improving how scale is taught K-undergrad, and creating a nucleons-up through materials leaning progression for K-6 ??? Not really... though I do wish I could find a community interested in such. I sometimes see discussion threads, "describe a side project that you'd really like to see happen, but don't have time for, so that your documentation, and the group's critique, might set up and motivate someone else to take it on". I don't know that I've ever seen that on HN. And while there are some hackathons in geology, I don't quickly find any for geology education or outreach. Maybe the current trend towards virtual hackathons will encourage such.
cossatot 6y ago
Although it's not as customizable based on fine-grained location, the USGS (not Ray Wells, the geologist who compiled the map, but his colleagues) are working on making what they call geonarratives or story maps (which is an ESRI trademarked product). These are interactive webmaps that also have a lot of narrative content (prose and pictures) that you can read through in a start-to-finish type of way, or browse the map and click on spots, seeing that part of the narrative. They are focusing right now on making these that describe geologic hazards such as Cascadia subduction zone earthquakes and attendant 'secondary perils' such as tsunamis, landslides, and liquefaction, all of which have different geographic distributions and types of impacts. The big hold-up with this is not really technological, it's that it takes a lot of time to write the damn content, make the maps and charts, and edit the photos. But on the (information) technical side, there are still a lot of cool things that can be done within webmaps or similar interfaces, showing interactive geologic events and having sliders for different times, or whatever.
- mncharity 6y ago
  Interesting - thanks. > story maps (which is an ESRI trademarked product) For the curious, given the phrase's use various settings, the trademarks are "Story Map Basic, Story Map Cascade, Story Map Crowdsource, Story Map Journal, Story Map Shortlist, Story Map Spyglass, Story Map Swipe, Story Map Series, Story Map Tour". > it takes a lot of time to write the damn content Indeed. One can imagine infrastructure and tooling to make it easier at scale, or even to enable broad collaboration, but fundable project scope is so much narrower. A related challenge is when site preservation, and neighbor relations and access, depend on location obscurity (I'm in Boston). That doesn't mesh well with "immersive field trip on the web" and "see geology near you - a national field trip wiki". > a lot of cool things that can be done within webmaps or similar interfaces Nod. Especially if XR provides an infrastructure for integrated geolocated content. "Roadside geology" guides might become more like current leaf identification apps - "point at leaf, get story of tree" become "point at rock or rock face, get story of continents". Hmm, neat, there's a bunch of current research on ML rock type identification, even with mobile nets.

082349872349872 6y ago

Traditionally field geologists (with the notable exception of the oil exploration kind) have been paid in scenery instead of in scrip. IOW: excellent idea, when do you start?

mncharity 6y ago
> when do you start? <Bemused look> Err... I've penciled it in, right after transformatively improving how scale is taught K-undergrad, and creating a nucleons-up through materials leaning progression for K-6 ??? Not really... though I do wish I could find a community interested in such. I sometimes see discussion threads, "describe a side project that you'd really like to see happen, but don't have time for, so that your documentation, and the group's critique, might set up and motivate someone else to take it on". I don't know that I've ever seen that on HN. And while there are some hackathons in geology, I don't quickly find any for geology education or outreach. Maybe the current trend towards virtual hackathons will encourage such.

cossatot 6y ago

Although it's not as customizable based on fine-grained location, the USGS (not Ray Wells, the geologist who compiled the map, but his colleagues) are working on making what they call geonarratives or story maps (which is an ESRI trademarked product). These are interactive webmaps that also have a lot of narrative content (prose and pictures) that you can read through in a start-to-finish type of way, or browse the map and click on spots, seeing that part of the narrative. They are focusing right now on making these that describe geologic hazards such as Cascadia subduction zone earthquakes and attendant 'secondary perils' such as tsunamis, landslides, and liquefaction, all of which have different geographic distributions and types of impacts. The big hold-up with this is not really technological, it's that it takes a lot of time to write the damn content, make the maps and charts, and edit the photos. But on the (information) technical side, there are still a lot of cool things that can be done within webmaps or similar interfaces, showing interactive geologic events and having sliders for different times, or whatever.

mncharity 6y ago
Interesting - thanks. > story maps (which is an ESRI trademarked product) For the curious, given the phrase's use various settings, the trademarks are "Story Map Basic, Story Map Cascade, Story Map Crowdsource, Story Map Journal, Story Map Shortlist, Story Map Spyglass, Story Map Swipe, Story Map Series, Story Map Tour". > it takes a lot of time to write the damn content Indeed. One can imagine infrastructure and tooling to make it easier at scale, or even to enable broad collaboration, but fundable project scope is so much narrower. A related challenge is when site preservation, and neighbor relations and access, depend on location obscurity (I'm in Boston). That doesn't mesh well with "immersive field trip on the web" and "see geology near you - a national field trip wiki". > a lot of cool things that can be done within webmaps or similar interfaces Nod. Especially if XR provides an infrastructure for integrated geolocated content. "Roadside geology" guides might become more like current leaf identification apps - "point at leaf, get story of tree" become "point at rock or rock face, get story of continents". Hmm, neat, there's a bunch of current research on ML rock type identification, even with mobile nets.