DIGITAL FIELD GEOLOGY SYSTEM

A multi-disciplinary team from MIT has come together in the past year to develop an integrated small-scale, wireless geologic mapping system for use in field geology classes that will enhance university-level fieldwork education by focusing more on the scientific aspects of the learning process while mitigating the administrative tasks that tend to protract and detract from the experience. We are in the process of developing a website (http://web.mit.edu/dtfg/www/index.html) that better describes this digital field geology (DFG) system and our progress to date. However, in the meantime, we provide this brief summary for your review.

The DFG system will improve the entire field geology mapping process from “field-to-publish” by integrating state-of-art technologies and, where necessary, developing both hardware and software enhancements. The DFG system will be easy-to-use, perform automated wireless functions that closely emulate and complement the traditional field work methods, provide simple software “smart” tools for use in the field that will aid those processes, and, finally, expedite and facilitate the translation of the field data to a digitized map. In addition, this system will be designed to appeal to and would be appropriate for a diverse, non-geologic student population. Furthermore, the use of this system would be applicable for fieldwork professionals or readily adapted for other commercial disciplines (e.g. highway inventory, utilities, disaster damage assessment, and military). Recently proven digital field systems have employed rugged laptop or pen-based computers with an array of peripheral devices that may or may not be suited for the particular environment or project at hand. Furthermore, these systems are limited by the technological state-of-art and their methods of implementation. As an improved alternative, the DFG system will incorporate hardware and software advances such as wireless, hand-held devices (e.g. PDAs), voice input, lightweight screens, and networks links to access more powerful computers remotely. What is innovative about the DFG system and its distinctive technical achievement is its integration of the latest technologies within a distributed-type architectural design and, in combination, these technological advances will greatly enhance the traditional field mapping process at the university level.