Building the Digital Earth ... (page 3 of 5)

The current efforts at Cornell University continue on two major disciplines: Data collection for a digital geoscience library, and developing easy-to-use tools to manipulate, access, manage, analyze, map, and study the collected data sets. Currently, there are two systems operational: an in-house system accessible to researchers at Cornell University, and an Internet based system accessible to everyone with an Internet connection. In recent years, emphasis has shifted from the in-house system to the Internet based system as the web accessibility grows in popularity and more and more users now have access to Internet connections and web browsers.

The in-house system developed by the Department of Geological Sciences and Institute for the Study of the Continents (INSTOC) at Cornell University is called GEOID (Geoscience Interactive Databases). GEOID is one of the first attempts to prepare scientists for the challenges awaiting them in the next century. It contains both global and regional data sets. GEOID has served well to demonstrate the power of easy-to-use access tools for users from high school students to advanced researchers.

The Internet based system is a similar system developed by the Department of Geological Sciences and Institute for the Study of the Continents (INSTOC) at Cornell University, but it holds more data sets. This is a result of our changing focus from the in-house system with only limited access to the Internet based open access system. An advanced Java applet provides user-defined access to large data sets in the underlying library. The applet provides dynamic mapping tools, data analysis and selection tools, ability to incorporate point, line, and polygon data sets, as well as tools like the Profile Maker, which is used to extract profiles between two arbitrary points on Earth. The details about the applet can be obtained from the users' guide.

Geologic Units

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