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We Will Rock You — Geologic Map Day


We Will Rock You — Geologic Map Day

The U.S. Geological Survey is partnering with the American Geosciences Institute, the Association of American State Geologists and others to promote the importance of geologic mapping to society.

Celebrate the second annual Geologic Map Day! On October 18, as a part of the Earth Science Week 2013 activities, join leading geoscience organizations in promoting awareness of the importance of geologic mapping to society.

Geologic maps are vital to education, science, business, and public policy concerns. Geologic Map Day will focus the attention of students, teachers, and the general public on the study, uses, and significance of these tools, by engaging audiences through educational activities, print materials, online resources, and public outreach opportunities.

caption is below.
Geologic map of the Holy Cross quadrangle, Colorado

In conjunction with Geologic Map Day, the USGS is promoting several new events.  The first “Best Student Geologic Map Competition” will be held at the annual Geological Society of America meeting.  Students in university (either undergraduates or graduate students) from around the world who have completed a geologic map are eligible to compete and we will be posting short videos of university students who have mapping in the field this summer.  We hope these videos will inspire younger students in high school to consider the Earth Sciences as their future major. 

Be sure to check out the Geologic Map Day poster included in this year’s Earth Science Week Toolkit. The poster and other materials in the kit show how geologic maps can be used to understand natural hazards as well as providing step-by-step instructions for a related classroom activity. Additional resources for learning about geologic maps can be found on the Geologic Map Day web page.

Geologic Map Day partners include the American Geosciences Institute (AGI), the Association of American State Geologists, the U.S. Geological Survey, the National Park Service, the Geological Society of America, and Esri.

Focusing on the theme of “Mapping Our World,” Earth Science Week 2013 will be celebrated October 13-19. To learn more, please visit www.earthsciweek.org/. To order your Toolkits, please visit www.earthsciweek.org/materials/. You may also call AGI Publications to place your order at 703-379-2480. 

For more information, go to:  http://www.earthsciweek.org/geologicmap/

USGS Newsroom


More information

Parameter Value Description
Magnitude mb The magnitude for the event.
Longitude ° East Decimal degrees longitude. Negative values for western longitudes.
Latitude ° North Decimal degrees latitude. Negative values for southern latitudes.
Depth km Depth of the event in kilometers.
Place Textual description of named geographic region near to the event. This may be a city name, or a Flinn-Engdahl Region name.
Time 1970-01-01 00:00:00 Time when the event occurred. UTC/GMT
Updated 1970-01-01 00:00:00 Time when the event was most recently updated. UTC/GMT
Timezone offset Timezone offset from UTC in minutes at the event epicenter.
Felt The total number of felt reports
CDI The maximum reported intensity for the event.
MMI The maximum estimated instrumental intensity for the event.
Alert Level The alert level from the PAGER earthquake impact scale. Green, Yellow, Orange or Red.
Review Status Indicates whether the event has been reviewed by a human.
Tsunami This flag is set to "1" for large events in oceanic regions and "0" otherwise. The existence or value of this flag does not indicate if a tsunami actually did or will exist.
SIG A number describing how significant the event is. Larger numbers indicate a more significant event.
Network The ID of a data contributor. Identifies the network considered to be the preferred source of information for this event.
Sources A comma-separated list of network contributors.
Number of Stations Used The total number of Number of seismic stations which reported P- and S-arrival times for this earthquake.
Horizontal Distance Horizontal distance from the epicenter to the nearest station (in degrees).
Root Mean Square sec The root-mean-square (RMS) travel time residual, in sec, using all weights.
Azimuthal Gap The largest azimuthal gap between azimuthally adjacent stations (in degrees).
Magnitude Type The method or algorithm used to calculate the preferred magnitude for the event.
Event Type Type of seismic event.
Event ID Id of event.
Event Code An identifying code assigned by, and unique from, the corresponding source for the event.
Event IDS A comma-separated list of event ids that are associated to an event.

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