Data Sources: Below are some links to websites with access to data bases, along with brief descriptions. You can use these to obtain data needed to complete some of your assignments (or if you just want to play). If you find new databases please let me know and I will add the link. If old links are broken let me know so that I can fix or remove them. I last checked the links on 7/06.
USGS data sites:
United States Geological Survey earthquake data: Using a search by time period and region one can obtain a listing of the position and size of earthquakes. One can use this to predict recurrence intervals, assess relative seismic risk and look for clustering.
United States Geological Survey river discharge data: River discharge data from the extensive system of gauging stations. Peak and average daily discharge data are easily accessible and extensive. This data can be used to computer recurrence intervals for future discharge events, or for looking for temporal changes due to urbanization.
United States Geological Survey sediment load data: Not available for as many sites as the discharge data, this is still a very extensive data base of sediment load data. It could be used to estimate dam basin infill times, or to look for temporal changes, or to simpley see what the relationship is between discharge and sediment load.
United States Geological Survey coal resources data: Searchable by state, county, geologic age and several other parameters, this database returns in table form information on position, coal rank, and volume.
United States Geological Survey geophysical data: This comes in a great variety of forms. There is a focus on magnetic and gravity data.
Aeromagnetic Surveys in Yukon Flats Alaska (USGS), A Website for the Distribution of Data By Philip J. Brown, 2003, U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 03-319. Can download data in ASCI format. It is a specific example of a large array of geophysical data the USGS makes available.
California heat flow data bases (USGS): This has data that can be downloaded in text or Excel format.
General:
NASA portal for earth science data and services: This takes a bit of exploring before you finally get the data, but is quite rich in the types and amount of data available.
Geological Society of America data repository for publications: Often there is not room in journal articles to include lengthy data tables, and so they are put into this repository for GSA periodicals. They are PDF files, and a very good source of data to play with. The variety of types of data is great.
Society for Sedimentary Geology: This page has a data archive with maybe 20 or so data sets, of a varied sedimentologic character. Some were as Excel sheets.
Midcontinent Interactive Digital Carbon Atlaz and Relational Database (MIDCARB), housed at the Kansas Geological Survey, provides maps and data useful for carbon sequestration projects, including geologic reservoir information.
Tsunami database. This is buried in the NOAA site listed above.
In depth information on Italy's volcanoes, Boris Behncke, Dipartimento di Scienze Geologiche (Sezione di Geologia e Geofisica), Palazzo delle Scienze, Corso Italia 55, 95129 Catania, Italy.: Buried in here are eruptive histories. They are not in simple table format, but the data is there.
Geochemical:
Lamont Doherty's basalt geochemistry and petrography database: This has a huge array of data on oceanic basalts from all sorts of sites and places. One searches by data type, region, and geologic site.
GEOROC: Geochemistry of Rocks of the Oceans and Continents is a database out of Germany. I had trouble getting this one to work, but didn't really try that long.
Geophysical:
National Geophysical Data Center: This is out of Boulder and includes a wealth of data, some of which is in specific formats for specific software. However, there is a "selected ascii data files" option under "Marine sediment and rock" that has a lot of good pertinent stuff.
The Global Heat Flow Database of the International Heat Flow Commission (site provided by the University of North Dakota). Gobs of data here in user friendly Excel sheet form. Listed by country and by continent. Position is given in latitude and longitude. For bettter maps without distortion this needs to be transformed to UTM positions when mapping the distribution.
California heat flow data bases (USGS): This has data that can be downloaded in text or Excel format.
Global Paleomagnetic database: This is a database created initially by Michael McElhinny and various other researchers. One could the entire Access database or can query it over the web at the Norwegian geological Survey site link provided here.
World Stress Map: This is a beautiful database (at least to a structural/tectonic type like me.
Environmental, climate change:
Global Change Master Directory: This is a humungous and varied database that actually takes some time to get through. However, for data on the global environment this is a good place to start.
National Snow and Ice Data Center: This very extensive site maintained at the University of Colorado Boulder has an abundance of data in numerous forms, including tabular and image data. One that could be interesting to check out is ice velocity data for Antarctica.
Vostok Ice Core data: This is incredible data that gives real insight into one major forcing agent when it comes to climate change (Milankovich cycles): can be read into Excel
Nebraska data:
NRD DEM data: This is free 30 and 10 m DEMs and shaded relief images with world files.
Nebraska GIS data from CSD and Calmit: This is specifically for ArcGIS, but has a lot of information. It must be extacted using ArcTool.
Agrichemical Contaminant Database for Nebraska Ground Water: This looks at contaminant data from
Software sources: This is far from exhaustive, but will give you entry
in this vast world. There has been an explosion of available software
in the last year or so. A lot of it is freeware. There is also
a lot of commerical stuff available of a great variety of price
ranges.
Rainer Petschick Macintosh software list is rich, and includes Excel macros.
North Dakota's geology software link list is varied, though focused on mineralogy/petrology software.
University of Tromsø, Norway software link list.
Rod Holcombe's structural geology software.
S. Krumm's searchable database on geological software.
Sorry if something isn't there when you try to link to it, but that's the nature of the web.
Copyright by Harmon D. Maher Jr.. This material may be used for non-profit educational purposes if proper attribution is given. Otherwise please contact Harmon D. Maher Jr.