MINUTES of the St. Louis, Missouri Meeting of the AASG Digital Geologic Mapping Committee and the USGS National Geologic Map Database Team August 14 & 15, 1996 _____________________________________________________________ August 14th The meeting was convened by Tom Berg and Dave Soller shortly after 7:00 p.m. ---------- Introductions: Meeting attendees: Warren Anderson Kentucky Geological Survey Tom Berg Ohio Geological Survey Boyan Brodaric Geological Survey of Canada Jim Cobb Kentucky Geological Survey John Davis Kansas Geological Survey Todd Fitzgibbon USGS - Western Region Geologic Mapping Team Greg Herman New Jersey Geological Survey Richard Hogan USGS- FGDC Standards Working Group (attended 8/15 only) Rob Krumm Illinois State Geological Survey Lucy McCartan USGS - Eastern Region Geologic Mapping Team Jim McDonald Ohio Geological Survey Tom Mettille Kansas Geological Survey John Neubaum Pennsylvania Topographic and Geological Survey Gary Raines USGS - Mineral Resource Surveys Jay Raney Texas Bureau of Economic Geology Jeff Reid North Carolina Geological Survey Dave Soller USGS - National Geologic Map Database, FGDC Bill Shilts Illinois State Geological Survey Dave Wagner California Division of Mines & Geology Ron Wahl USGS - Central Region Geologic Mapping Team ---------- Expectations: The meeting began with participants expressing their expectations for this meeting and the standards that need to be established for the National Geologic Map Database. Below are some of the responses: * Want to set scale for geologic maps * Division of Labor between the USGS and the states? * How do we keep the art or the interpretations that the geologist has put into a geologic map? * Flexibility of standards and breadth of standards * Platform * Need to have lowest common denominator * Search for simpler, most universal standards. * What are the limitations of the process? * Need direction - cartographic vs. database needs. * Need simple standard, but one that captures complexity and depth of geologic maps. * Need consensus on common symbology, common communication standard. * Platforms for Metadata * Database design - Federal government will be different from the states. * Make standards easy to understand but workable. * Need a vision statement - what should we be expecting from the National Geologic Map Database (NGMDB)? Identify a process on how standards will be developed. Be flexible about standards. * What do we mean by standards? * Metadata, "Metadata Light?" * If standards are usable, people will use them. Standards cost money to implement and use. * Scale issues * Needs to accommodate change. What is useful now and what is of lasting value? What is conceptual? ---------- Overview of the National Geologic Mapping Act and the National Geologic Map Database: Presentations were given by Dave Soller, Tom Berg, John Davis, and Gary Raines. Dave Soller gave a brief overview of the National Geologic Map Database (NGMDB). In early 1995, the USGS decided that the project needed to be a cooperative effort. Some of the parameters of the database are listed below: * Needs to be distributed system-data will exist on state, federal, and university servers. * The database will include metadata on all paper and digital maps produced by the USGS, the states, and others. * It will include all or selected digital map files. * It will include information on all current projects. * The database will include geologic, geophysical, geochemical, geochronologic, and paleontologic spatial information. Dave Soller also passed out a paper on the general design of the NGMDB that was published in Geotimes. A demonstration of the Database Web site was planned for tomorrow (August 15th,1996). The catalog of paper maps will be built in the coming year. The USGS will start with USGS publications, then go to the states. The state surveys need to identify the points of contact within their states for their lists of publications. The state surveys also need to identify points of contact for digital data-managers so that links can be set up between the NGMDB and digital data served by the states, and so access can be given to the (planned) internal USGS NGMDB home page. Dave also stated that the primary presentation scale of digital geologic maps served directly by the NGMDB will be 1:100,000. It is up to the states to determine the appropriate scale for compiling their geologic maps. Of course, the USGS will not set a standard scale for conducting geologic mapping at the state surveys The Reynolds document (USGS OFR 95-525) is a cartographic standard, and was not reviewed by state cooperators, FGDC, and Geologic Division prior to its release. The document has now been reviewed. and Plans for releasing a revised version of the document are being formulated. Dave gave his expectation of what standards should be developed in the interim. A paper was passed out detailing what interim standards the USGS will be following for the National Geologic Map Database. The states will not be forced to follow these standards. Tom Berg gave a short talk on the enabling legislation for the National Geologic Mapping Act. John Davis provided some early history behind the AASG Digital Geologic Mapping Committee. The idea behind the original group was to produce: * A list of geologic symbols. Some of the type of map symbols include: Area Symbols Line Symbols Point Symbols Annotation Legend material * State the positional accuracy of the geologic symbols. * Produce digital representations of the geologic symbols. These results were to be issued as a series of open file reports. The final standard was to be issued either as a USGS Bulletin or as a Professional Paper. The USGS-AASG met three times in 1988/1989. The AASG did not formally meet again with the USGS on the digital mapping standard. The document was released in 1995 as an openfile report. John gave his opinion of the Reynolds document as part of the informal review initiated by Dave Soller and the FGDC after the document was released. Tom Berg gave a brief review of the recent annual AASG meeting in Charlottesville, Virginia. The AASG charge to the Digital Geologic Mapping Committee is as follows: "The Digital Geologic Mapping Committee shall represent all of the state geological surveys to help establish and construct the National Geologic Map Database as required by the National Geologic Mapping Act of 1992, and by federal legislation reauthorizing the Act. The Committee will work in direct cooperation with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) where the national database is to reside. The Committee will work with the USGS to establish and meet digital standards to be developed in concert with the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC). The Committee shall, with the approval of the Executive Committee establish subcommittees to deal with digital mapping issues such as metadata, attribution, costs, and topographic mapping. It will also report on activities of the FGDC, the NAS/NRC Mapping Science Committee, and other groups from government, private industry, and academia involved with digital mapping standards." In a planning conference in Columbus, Ohio, Tom Berg and Dave Soller, together with Jim Cobb, Warren Anderson, and Jim McDonald resolved to set up the meeting in St. Louis to: * Determine what standards need to be defined. * Create work groups of interested volunteers to work on the standards. * Develop timelines for reporting accomplishments. Gary Raines gave a summary of the Portland, Oregon meeting, held at the Cordilleran Section GSA meeting this year. The meeting was held because of a growing sense of urgency to build geologic-map information into rapidly developing geographic information systems. There was also some frustration with USGS OFR 95-525. The open-file report dealt only with the display of symbols, not with the underlying structure of the data or with the analysis of the data. A question was asked as to what is meant by "data structure." Responses included how data will be used in computers and how data will be stored in computers. Data structure is only superficially related to the display of data. It was noted that a lot of data is in most geologic map legends. Participants suggested that it was probably important to try to design a standard legend, but that all legends tend to be different making standardization difficult. At the Portland meeting, GSA President Eldridge Moores suggested that a Penrose Conference be held on the data structure of digital geologic maps. It appears that such a conference will be going forward and will be an outstanding opportunity to advance the development of a national database. Jim Cobb stated that presentation of map information is very important to the Kentucky Geological Survey. They cannot capture all details and reproduce all information that already has been captured on their printed paper geologic maps. Tom Berg stated that no standards will be set at this meeting, but work groups will be put together that will work on standards. He went over the agenda for the next day's meeting. The meeting was closed shortly after 10:00 p.m. ---------- August 15th The meeting was convened by Tom Berg and Dave Soller at 8:00 a.m. Dave Soller did not give a demonstration of the NGMDB web site due to problems with the network connection. Brainstorming on standards: There was a brainstorming session to list the types of standards needed for digital geologic maps. The results follow: * Cartographic standards and implementation of those standards * Metadata standards * DRG capture of paper maps * Spatial Accuracy * Data model content (including data definitions/information exchange) * Data capture standards, probably related to DRG standards . Archiving There was much discussion on the data model for digital geologic maps. Some of the comments are given below * Gary Raines stated that the data model should address the issue of scaleability and/or the scale of acquisition. * The data model is independent of content. * Boyan Brodaric stated that from a computer and information science viewpoint, a data model has three levels of abstraction. * We need to take a lowest-common-denominator approach to establishing standards. * What and who are we establishing these standards for? Tom Berg said that the state surveys and the USGS are cooperating to establish standards for the NGMDB. * The standards need to allow for storage of the most accurate data, but also allow for generalizing smaller-scale maps from the more detailed. * Publication should derive from the data model, or as a part of the data model. * How do you classify the raw data for the legend? * There are serious cost implications in establishing standards. * We cannot ignore the subject of generalization We may not want to establish separate standards for 1:100k maps because this may disconnect the map at 1:100k from the detailed data source. ---------- The Role of the FGDC Standards Working Group: Richard Hogan gave a presentation on the Federal Geographic Data Committee's (FGDC) Standards Working Group (SWG). The Standards Working Group has a home page on the Internet. Anyone can download all the minutes for the SWG. It also has a page for all the standards including the Geologic Subcommittee The FGDC Standards Working Group coordinates the standards-development activities of all FGDC subcommittees. The SWG also established a model on how standards are created and provides structure and commonality on what has been done. Richard stated that you only need standards when you have disagreements among participants. The standards only apply to those who agree to participate. They can only be as broad as the community that participates and adopts the standards. FGDC standards are mandated for the Federal Government and its cooperators, but they are voluntary for all other participants. Standards are negotiated. Negotiated standards are usually not the best technical solution, but it is the most widely adopted solution. The Standards Reference Model established by the SWG is incomplete, but can be downloaded from the web. The Standards Reference Model has different types of standards that can be created and processes that can be agreed upon. It also includes the steps for establishing FGDC Standards. These steps are modeled after the ANSI and ISO standards bodies. Standards that are created must undergo public review and comment. After public review and comment, they must undergo a final review by the FGDC. ---------- Late Morning session Dave Soller will send the Draft Cartographic Standard to the AASG Digital Geologic Mapping Committee for review three months after the contract is let out to implement the standard. This should occur by the end of the year. The USGS will explore implementing this draft cartographic standard in ARC/INFO for their own internal use. Soller also wanted to see a preliminary implementation of the metadata standard/data exchange standard by this fall. Richard Hogan had some comments about the metadata standard. There have been many different implementations of the standard. Organizations have changed the standard to their own liking by adding and eliminating elements in the standard. There is also no mechanism for expandability or reducibility in the standard. The ISO process has reduced the standard to core elements. Currently, there is an effort to change the metadata standard. Richard Hogan suggested that we wait until this change has been made effective before we formalize an implementation of the metadata standard. ---------- Establishment of Work Groups: 1. Metadata Work Group- The charge: 1 ) Look at the "Content standard for geospatial... " for adequacy. 2) Examine implementing metadata--in a standard format for geologic maps. 3) Establish guidelines as to what the metadata elements mean to a geologist. 4) Determine a process for facilitating input from state geological surveys not represented at this meeting. 5) Format a specific set of fields that must be filled out for the NGMDB map catalog. Members: Peter Schweitzer-USGS-Chair Tom Metille Kansas Greg Herman-New Jersey Rob Krumm-Illinois Target Date - November 30, 1996 to develop a plan ---------- 2. Data Information Exchange Work Group- The Charge: 1) Come to an agreement on standard types of files that need to be packaged for the users of geologic maps. What are the components and formats of a digital geologic map product? Members: Todd Fitzgibbon-USGS-Chair Ron Hess-Nevada lan Duncan-Virginia Gene Ellis-USGS Bernie Hoyer-lowa Target Date - November 30, 1996 to develop a plan. ---------- 3. Data-Capture Work Group- The Charge: 1) Provide guidance on data-capture techniques through facilitation of information exchange. 2) Conduct workshops to share experiences and insight and evaluate technology (i.e. DRG's). 3) Conduct informal evening session on workshop at Denver GSA, October 25-28. 4) Conduct formal workshop in February, 1997. Members: Dave Soller-USGS-Chair Gina Ross-Kansas Dave Wagner-California Rob Krumm-Illinois Tom Whitfield-Pennsylvania Warren Anderson-Kentucky Elizabeth Campbell-Virginia Target Dates - Denver Workshop, October 30, 1996; Formal Workshop, February, 1997 ---------- 4. Spatial Accuracy Work Group- The Charge: 1) Produce a general-interest publication that explains the accuracy of geologic maps. 2) Investigate technologies to improve spatial accuracy for geologic maps. 3) Look at issues of disclaimers, and the use and misuse of maps and data. Members: Dick Berg-Illinois-Chair Bill Shilts-Illinois John Davis-Kansas Gary Raines-USGS Jay Raney-Texas Dave Wagner-California Warren Anderson-Kentucky James McDonald-Ohio Target Date - November 30, 1996 to scope out the issue. ---------- 6. Data Model Work Group- The Charge: 1) Identify the "core" elements common to all geologic maps and legends. (General Framework). Questions of detail. What are the limitations? 2) Bells and Whistles-How to add features and capabilities to the core elements. 3) Investigate data structures to facilitate generalization and creation of derivative maps from the data (i.e., the "evolutionary" map). Members: Todd Fitzgibbon-USGS-Co-Chair Gary Raines-USGS-Co-Chair Boyan Brodaric-GSC Bill Shilts-Illinois Bruce Johnson-USGS Ron Wahl-USGS James McDonald-Ohio Jim Cobb-Kentucky Greg Herman-New Jersey Plus others by invitation Target Dates - Scope the issue by November 30, 1996. Have core elements identified by February, 1997. Have a presentation ready by the Penrose Conference of June 1997. Complete the data model by the end of 2 years from now. ---------- Discussion of Pilot Projects: Jim Cobb and Warren Anderson discussed pilot projects. They want the committee to do a pilot project and follow it all the way through. A discussion concluded with agreement that the Kentucky people and others would give an informal presentation at the Denver GSA in October. ---------- Costs of Establishing Standards: It was agreed that the costs of establishing standards should be discussed at the Denver GSA meeting in October. The subject should also be an agenda item for the next meeting of the National Geologic Mapping Advisory Committee. ---------- The meeting was closed by Tom Berg and Dave Soller at 4:00 p.m. Minutes prepared by James McDonald & Thomas Berg, Ohio Geological Survey