GEOSCIENCES INFORMATION SOCIETY – a division of
the Geological Society of America
STS LIAISON REPORT from Annual Meeting November 4-7, 2012, Charlotte, NC
GSIS – to differentiate from GIS (Geographic Information Systems)
Link for GSA meeting: http://www.geosociety.org/meetings/2012/
Geosciences 101 is always offered the day before the conference begins. Geology and Map & GIS
Librarians teach members new to the field(s) about the resources available.
New key resources and tools:
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National Geologic Map Database -- http://ngmdb.usgs.gov
Deep Carbon Observatory -- http://deepcarbon.net/faq
Hydrologic Information System – http://his.cashi.org CUAHSI Water Data Center
National Geothermal Data System: http://www.geothermaldata.org (free, the product of the
U.S. Geosciences Information Network -- http://usgin.org
Oregon Spatial Data Library -- Built using the ESRI Geoportal Server
http://spatialdata.oregonexplorer.info/geoportal/catalog/main/home.page
Geospatial Information Portal -- http://campusguides.lib.utah.edu/GIS which includes the
Western Soundscape Archive, Utah county maps, water resources and history & more
Minnesota Geological Survey -- All publications & maps, freely available:
http://www.mngs.umn.edu/mgsdocs.html
GigaPan -- http://www.gigapan.com for hi-res images
Electronic Geological Management System, for managing geological materials,
http://egemsinfo.com
Other topics discussed were:
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Open access (OA) journals of various stripes
Impact of sequestration on the USGS. Before Richard Huffine resigned as the head of the USGS
Libraries, he oversaw the digitization of 80% of USGS documents, which are freely available
online.
Georef update
What to retain in print in the geosciences
Resources beyond traditional print sources: satellite photos, maps, rocks, X-rays, films, etc.
Using social media effectively
AAPG, the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, database update. http://aapg.org
Georeferencing is available via Datapages Exploration Objects – GIS (DEO-GIS)
Gem Institute of America -- much information on gems at http://www.gia.edu
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Earthcube is being developed. From their homepage: “ Earthcube aims to transform the conduct
of research through the development of community-guided cyberinfrastructure to integrate
information and data across the geosciences.” http:// earthcube.ning.com with NSF funding.
Earthcache is an outreach and educational program of the Geological Society of America “to
raise the awareness of the importance of earth science to all.” http://Earthcache.org
Report submitted by Louise Deis
July 12, 2013