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oa Geo-flightseeing - How to use Google Earth to Bring Virtual Field Trips to the Regional Scale
- Publisher: European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers
- Source: Conference Proceedings, GeoSkill 2010 - EAGE Workshop on the Challenges of Training and Developing E&P Professionals in the 21st Century, Sep 2010, cp-167-00005
- ISBN: 978-90-73781-90-0
Abstract
The start of the 21st Century has been marked by the revolutionary accessibility of information provided by virtual globes. These tools can be used by everyone, from students integrating their work into a synthesised whole or by energy industry teams looking to coherently bring together all their surface-upward data. Such globes can also represent a structural interpretation tool, enabling deductions to be formulated from the surface outcrop imagery. In this paper, we illustrate how Google Earth can provide an aerial geological journey across the Apennine-Alpine chain and its power as a presentational and learning device. During this virtual field trip, we examine features at the regional scale, before selectively zooming in to highlighting areas of interest. What kind of information can be displayed and how can our data-voracious geoscientist integrate it with other geoscience tools? We illustrate how such a technology can be used in formulating a coherent integration of data from above, within and below the surface. This we hope will encourage geoscientists to harness the benefits provided by virtual globes, such as Google Earth, to geological projects and the art of interpretation.