GIS Applications in Geology Syllabus

Instructor

John Jaeger

WH 224 846-1381

Office Hours: MWF 10-11:30 am

Course Meeting Schedule-Fall 2006

Lecture: Tuesday Period 7

Lab: Thursday Period 7

Course Description

This course will provide a practical, hands-on approach to spatial database design and spatial data analysis with Geographical Information Systems (GIS) as applied to the geological sciences. The platform used will be ArcView 3.2a by ESRI, and Microsoft Excel, but the techniques developed will be applicable to other software. Two lab computers will have all software available, and students are free to load up personal copies of Arcview under the UF site license.

The project-based nature of the course will encourage students to bring in real data that they are working on, and leave the course with significant progress on their project. Grades will be based upon ~13 assignments (50% of grade), a midterm exam (25% of grade), and a final project (25% of grade) that the student will design with guidance from the instructor.

This is a fast-paced course, and I leave out a lot of historical material, except to explain some goofy file format, naming convention, etc; or to build a core understanding of the material. I also do not cover Network Analysis, though if a student has a need for this (for stream network, etc) we can pursue this during the individual projects. By leaving out these 2 topics we have time to cover more advanced material in analysis, statistics and modeling. By the time you finish this class you will be "GIS-Dangerous"!

The lecture will be devoted to explanation of the basics of each weekly topic. Thursday’s lab will be devoted to hands on instruction and working on that week’s assignment. Additional lab access is available beyond the scheduled class times. There are many labs on campus with the necessary software. If you need to run the ArcView software at home, you can install your own copy (come see me for the disk).

Prerequisite: By its nature, GIS is a computer intensive endeavor. You should be comfortable with general operating system concepts like file-types, directory structures and network resources. Those with less background will still be able to succeed, but they will find themselves working harder than their more computer-proficient peers. From what I've observed, prior computer experience is more important than prior GIS experience.

Background:

Geological features vary in space and time. This fundamental characteristic is responsible for making it a most genuine application field of Geographical Information Systems, where the strength lies in defining the two dimension (X,Y extent), third dimension (Z component) and the fourth dimension (time) of spatial information (Ray, 2002). This course constitutes a practical introduction to the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software to manipulate and analyze spatial data for use in geological applications. In my opinion, GIS is a tool, no different than a microscope, for analyzing geological data. The quality of your observations using a GIS (or microscope) is only as good as the data (or thin section) that are prepared and used. GARBAGE IN=GARBAGE OUT. So, my goal this semester is to make sure that you are able to prepare and utilize the highest quality geologic data in a GIS and to show you basic ways of manipulating and analyzing the data. I will not have time to go into advance GIS techniques. If you want to do this, there are several graduate courses in Geography that can help you.

Course Objectives:

Knowledge of the fundamentals of GIS theory, and the stages of developing and using a GIS
Proficiency in the use of the ArcView GIS software for visualization, query, mapping, and analytical purposes.
Familiarity with GIS data sets
Knowledge of various GIS data formats
How to obtain, prepare, translate, document, and analyze GIS data
Importance of scale, resolution, accuracy & precision, map projections
Understanding of the relationship between spatial and tabular data
Development of good ‘computer lab technique’ vis-à-vis documenting procedures, data, software tools, results, and challenges
Ability to teach selves & others new techniques
Ability to use resources such as the world-wide-web for acquiring GIS data and tools.
Use of key related software tools including email, text editors, word processors, spreadsheets, compression utilities, web browsers, etc.
Exposure to advanced techniques and methods

Exercises

The bulk of the quarter will consist of individual exercises that will make you Arcview-capable and therefore dangerous. Also, you will be required to complete a semester project. The project will encapsulate assorted stages of creating a GIS project from scratch: Field mapping & data collection, GIS & database creation, air photo and GPS integration, spatial analysis, and map making may all be encountered. The exercise will be scored as a complete project at the end. In general, all materials will be submitted by students electronically, via Adobe Acrobat files.

Lab Book

Each student should purchase a 1 bound book for keeping notes on their rough computer work. There’s nothing worse than forgetting how you carried out some magical technique.

Software

The primary GIS software used in this course is ArcView GIS version 3.2a, from Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI). This software package currently has the largest install base (most used?) world-wide. Through the base package and optional add-ins, or ‘extensions’ ArcView 3.2 is a highly capable package providing many or most of the tools of a modern GIS. We will also use a second-party program “Global Mapper” that makes the importing of data into Arcview almost painless.

Students learning GIS through the use of ArcView 3.2 should both be assured that it will continue to be very widely used for years to come, in academics, government, and industry; and also cognizant that GIS is only partly the software used. Software comes and goes, computer operating systems change. However, at a higher level, tools, methods, and approaches transcend individual software.

Many companies and organizations are transitioning to the use of ArcGIS 9, which is the latest GIS platform supplied by ESRI. In my experience, this is a very difficult group of programs for GIS newbies to work with, and most of a first semester is spent learning how to run the program. Consequently, I do not use it for this course. However, be rest assured, once you learn Arcview 3.2a, ArcGIS is MUCH easier to use.