Where We Stand after a Decade of Digital Mapping with GeoMapper: A New Mapping Frontier

Initial resistance to incorporating digital field methods in academia is waning. In growing numbers, field instructors have realized that conversion from paper to digital methods is inevitable and offers significant advantages especially in light of the improvements made in hardware and software. Experience gained over a decade of teaching both the introductory field methods course and our advanced summer field course at UC Berkeley shows that paper methods remain a vital phase of acquiring mapping skills, confidence building, and expanding powers of interpretation. This talk addresses how such traditional field experience is then expanded through GIS technology in the field using program GeoMapper/PenMap which provides a ready-made visual user interface for customizing stratigraphic legends and supports pen-based point and click mapping of lithologies, formations, structures, mineralization, and alteration. This new technology supports both more accurate locations using directly linked DGPS and efficient mapping while expanding the powers of interpretation by integrating multiple sets of data including geophysics. Overlays of seismic epicenters with geology show which mapped faults are active and represent neo-tectonic processes. Our advanced summer field course in south west Montana has proven that the single greatest advantage of digital mapping is that we can now work effectively in regions where only reconnaissance grade mapping has been possible in remote areas between roads or under tree canopy. Hence, advanced summer field courses can complete field project mapping that contributes valuable new geological information rather than remap well-known regions. Digital mapping can also help standardize mapping procedures while also supporting individual ways of mapping. GeoMapper offers more than a time-consuming development tool, but is an enabling, out of the box program supporting a complete mapping system that can be adapted to each new area. Alumni support from enthusiastic retired professionals has proved vital in implementing and maintaining digital technology.