Search for: All records

Abstract The StraboSpot data system provides field-based geologists the ability to digitally collect, archive, query, and share data. Recent efforts have expanded this data system with the vocabulary, standards, and workflow utilized by the sedimentary geology community. A standardized vocabulary that honors typical workflows for collecting sedimentologic and stratigraphic field and laboratory data was developed through a series of focused workshops and vetted/refined through subsequent workshops and field trips. This new vocabulary was designed to fit within the underlying structure of StraboSpot and resulted in the expansion of the existing data structure. Although the map-based approach of StraboSpot did not fully conform to the workflow for sedimentary geologists, new functions were developed for the sedimentary community to facilitate descriptions, interpretations, and the plotting of measured sections to document stratigraphic position and relationships between data types. Consequently, a new modality was added to StraboSpot—Strat Mode—which now accommodates sedimentary workflows that enable users to document stratigraphic positions and relationships and automates construction of measured stratigraphic sections. Strat Mode facilitates data collection and co-location of multiple data types (e.g., descriptive observations, images, samples, and measurements) in geographic and stratigraphic coordinates across multiple scales, thus preserving spatial and stratigraphic relationships in the data structure. Incorporating these digital technologies will lead to better research communication in sedimentology through a common vocabulary, shared standards, and open data archiving and sharing. 

The earth sciences, all sciences, are doing more and more of their activities online. Although moving online was previously a well-established trend, the COVID-19 crisis has accelerated this, as faculty, teachers, and students came to understand all too well during 2020. Ordinary activities, such as field trips, field camps, and even professional meetings like GSA 2020 Connects Online, have moved mostly online (Tikoff et al., 2020). We have had to devise new ways of teaching that are entirely outside of our experience. Rather than wistfully wishing for a return to times past, the current situation is an opportunity to explore change and depart from our old ways of doing things, striving to make our science and our geology richer to each other. Returning to and reliving the past is what we do in our geology, but it should not be what we do as geologists and scientists. At the same time, it is becoming more critical for earth scientists, and all scientists, to better engage the public and stakeholders in their work, their data, and their insights and conclusions. We have been facing not only a pandemic of disease but also a pandemic of climate change accompanied by the malady of denying science. Because the subject of geology is our shared planet and environment, geoscientists can present much of their work in a way that is relevant to the public. We have an advantage in that the public can see what we do, look directly at what we study, and appreciate where samples come from for our analyses. The basis of our science surrounds us. The online world further opens our science, whether in geologic maps, pictures of thin sections of rocks, or a numerical age for a sample, to general observation. This new openness and connectedness can give us the power of remote participation and access