Development of this Standard:

This standard is the summary and formalization of a long, National legacy of cartographic practices for geologic maps, which began in the 1880's. The preparation of the standard began in the late 1990's (see the FGDC proposal), and was marked in 2000 by preparation of a draft document that was formally released for public review (see below). This review indicated the need for significant revisions (for example, regarding the description of scientific confidence and locational accuracy of geologic features), and so a Map Symbol Committee (see maintenance and revision) was formed to provide technical advice to the preparers of this standard. The document was extensively modified and in August, 2006, it was endorsed as a Federal standard. For more information, please see Section 1.5, "Standards Development Procedures," and Section 2, "Background," in the introductory text.

The FGDC Public Review: For historical interest and to provide acknowledgment to the many thoughtful reviewers of the document, the Public Review Draft and our response to review comments are available, below. We warmly thank all the reviewers of the Public Review Draft for their contributions, and are pleased that most of the comments and suggestions could be accommodated. We also acknowledge and thank the many people, too numerous to mention, who provided us with guidance and comments in the period during which the Draft was developed.

• The FGDC Public Review process
• The Public Review Draft (now superceded by this FGDC-endorsed standard)
• List of reviewers
• Reviewer comments and our responses

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