17 D5. Geoscience Education (Posters)

Sunday, 17 March 2019
1:30 PM - 5:30 PM
Casco Bay Hall

FOUR TOOLS TO ACCESS THE DATABASE OF NYSGA FIELD TRIPS

Paper number: 17-4
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 1:30 PM – 5:30 PM

Authors

Abstract

The New York State Geological Association (NYSGA) has made their field trip guidebooks available online. We have developed four tools to manage this data trove. A guidebook has 5 to 20 field trips and often has hundreds of Stops and Views. We have digitized trips from 1956-2003 including over 8000 localities.

We constructed Google Earth’s kml files showing each trip's path complete with road log descriptions. This data is now available in a database and accessible via several different tools:

  1. Google Fusion Tables: Users who wish to display a subset of the data as a map on a web page can embed a filtered Fusion Table version of the database with a simple copy and paste from the Fusion Table site.
  2. Desktop FileMaker Database: Users owning FileMaker (Mac or Windows) can download the database. Mac users who do not own FileMaker can download a stand-alone application permitting them to manipulate the database. Complex searches limiting results by combinations of geospatial extent, date, author, content, etc., are easily done with this desktop application
  3. IOS FileMaker Database: Users with an iPhone or iPad can use the free app FileMaker Go to access the database. Although not quite as powerful as the desktop version, the search capabilities are still impressive. It permits exporting as csv or kml files, which can be imported into Avenza Maps, PocketEarth, Google Earth or similar apps, all on the same device.
  4. Excel Tables: We provide an Excel version of the database which lets users employ the filters in Excel Tables to limit their search by subject or geospatial extent. Inserting the data exported from Excel into the provided Word document converts the results into a kml file.

These tools provide the user with the opportunity to filter the large amount of data contained in the database by individual trips, geographic area, or the occurrence of a particular mineral or fossil in the locality descriptions. The search result can subsequently be downloaded or can be used to download the pdf file from that trip. These files contain much more information than the Road Log descriptions, including maps, graphs, data tables and explanations of why the stops are important, how they relate to each other, etc.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 51, No. 1

doi: 10.1130/abs/2019NE-328078

© Copyright 2019 The Geological Society of America (GSA), all rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted to the author(s) of this abstract to reproduce and distribute it freely, for noncommercial purposes. Permission is hereby granted to any individual scientist to download a single copy of this electronic file and reproduce up to 20 paper copies for noncommercial purposes advancing science and education, including classroom use, providing all reproductions include the complete content shown here, including the author information. All other forms of reproduction and/or transmittal are prohibited without written permission from GSA Copyright Permissions.