UW brings field geology to students with Virtual Field Geology
Education | Environment | Research | Science | Technology | UW news blog
December 8, 2022
The former Bear Valley Strip Mine in Pennsylvania is the site of the “Whaleback Anticline,” named because the 30-foot-tall bedrock hump resembles a whale. Decades of coal mining have exposed folds in the bedrock that provide clues to the history of the landscape. The Virtual Field Geology project uses drone photography to create virtual field visits on a web browser or virtual reality headset.University of Washington
Geologists from the University of Washington had started creating computerized field tests long before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Julia Crideran associate professor of earth and space sciences at UW, first received a grant from the National Science Foundation to send a former graduate student and a drone to photograph an iconic geological site in Pennsylvania and test a new approach to field geology.
Your team has now conducted a virtual field visit to this site, the Whaleback anticline, where decades of coal mining have exposed 300-million-year-old folds in bedrock. A pilot version of the web-based tool was used during the pandemic, and a version that allows people to wear virtual reality headsets to explore the geological site that was just launched. A UW field class used both tools in an undergraduate summer course that combined virtual and in-person field trips for the first time.
The UW Virtual field geology The project has many goals: to make geological field experiences accessible to more people; to document geological field sites that may be at risk from erosion or development; to offer virtual “dry run” experiences that complement field courses and help new students become familiar with the field; and to allow research associates to virtually visit and explore a field site together.
Max Nadel, a UW graduate student in Earth and Space Sciences, used his background in geology to help develop the virtual field experiences. He is the lead author of a paper published this fall, which features the first two sites: the Whaleback site and a fictional site called “Fold Islands”.
The fictional “Fold Islands” experience is a cartoon-based field geology website that allows students to practice their skills with a geodetic compass and other field geology tools.Needle et al./Geoscience Communication
“Virtual experiences give more people access, they allow us to visit places that are completely inaccessible, and we believe everyone can benefit from a new way of interacting with the tools of field geology,” Needle said.
Last summer, instead of the traditional six-week field course in underwater geology in Montana, the department held a hybrid version led by Crider and Cailey Condit, a UW Assistant Professor of Earth and Space Sciences. It combined classroom instruction and digital experiences with day trips to the many geological sites within driving distance of the Seattle campus.
“In the future, these virtual field trips will likely play a key role in making earth science more accessible and equitable,” said Condit. “They offer all students the opportunity to start fieldwork remotely and learn how important the geological field context is to Earth Sciences.”
The pandemic changed the course of the project. As COVID canceled field trips, the team paused virtual reality programming and focused on creating a web-based version that would be most accessible to most people. Since the site’s launch, it has been viewed more than 1,700 times by UW students and, after being shared by the geology education community, around the world. The team recently completed the VR version.
While people can now travel and congregate, the team believes virtual experiences could become part of a “new normal” for geological research and education.
“Part of improving access to the field is helping people know what to expect,” Crider said. “To the extent that we can help students anticipate both the outdoor experience and the science experience, uncertainty and perhaps anxiety will be reduced and people will be able to focus on learning goals.”
The virtual experiences allow people to visit the site and use common geological tools to measure angles in the rock strata or the orientation of cracks that explain a landscape’s history. While a virtual option will benefit anyone challenged by the journey and on-site access to a remote field, it also allows all students and researchers to experience a “dry run” and review techniques before reaching the actual site.
In the web-based virtual experience, keyboard shortcuts let a user walk through the landscape. Users can try different tools to measure distances and angles. Selecting three points creates a virtual plane and shows its orientation. The data can be downloaded into a spreadsheet or directly into any popular geology software program.
“What’s unique about this experience is that it’s open-ended, which allows instructors to customize the instruction and goals,” said Crider. “Students choose what and where to measure to answer the questions – it’s not predetermined. It is important to make these decisions.”
The virtual experience also grants the scientist superhuman powers to instantly fly from one location to another, zooming in and out to explore a location at different scales.
“One of the cool things about the game is that you can fly. There’s a little jetpack icon and then you fly up in the air and all of a sudden your perspective changes and you can travel from place to place quickly,” Needle said.
It also provides access to sites with restricted or risky access.
“At the Whaleback anticline, much of the interesting curved rock geometry is exposed at a height of 30 feet where you can’t walk without risking death,” Needle said.
The team recently demonstrated the virtual reality version of the Pennsylvania site. Although VR requires a dedicated headset, the field of view is larger and VR provides a sense of scale that helps in places like the 30-foot-tall Whaleback Anticline. An interactive feature lets the user pick up a rock hammer and split open a 3D model of a rock.
Max Needle (far right) and Jacky Mooc (center in blue sweater) at the Geological Society of America annual meeting in Denver in October. Two meeting participants explore the geological site of the Whaleback Anticline by donning an Oculus Quest 2 headset.University of Washington
“As a teaching assistant, I’ve seen students face challenges in this area that went beyond the academic aspect,” Needle said. “Or maybe someone can’t go to the field because they have severe asthma, or a certain field spot can only be reached with special climbing gear. We believe many people can benefit from these tools.”
Needle taught a short class at the Geological Society of America annual meeting in October showing other geologists how to use the UW software to create other virtual field visits. This was the third workshop of this type he had given and the largest to date. All software used for the UW experiences is freely available.
Max Needle will present the Virtual Field Geology project at the Geological Society of America annual meeting in Denver in October.University of Washington
Projects for sites in Pennsylvania, Vermont and California are underway. Needle hopes the software could one day be used to visit the bottom of the ocean or the surface of another planet.
“I think this is a prototype of where the field of geology could go in the future,” Needle said.
The lead designers are Jacky Mooc, a recent UW computer science and engineering graduate who is now a software engineer at Lockheed Martin, and John Akers of the UW Reality Lab. It was one of the first projects Reality Lab Incubator, which matches UW students with projects that require augmented reality or virtual reality programming. The effort and tools required for this work were funded by the National Science Foundation, the UW Research Royalty Fund, the UW Department of Earth and Space Sciences, the UW Student Technology Fund, and the Geological Society of America.
For more information, contact Needle at [email protected]Crider at [email protected] and condition [email protected] .
Keyword(s): College of the Environment • Department of Earth and Space Sciences • Geology • Juliet Crider • Reality Lab
