Jacqueline Houghton, Clare Gordon, Geoff Lloyd, Dan Morgan, Ben - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/virtual-landscapes/

Jacqueline Houghton, Clare Gordon, Geoff Lloyd, Dan Morgan, Ben Craven and Graham McLeod School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, UK

• Screen-based virtual reality environments,

created using the Unity 3D game engine software

• Aims:
• Enhance geological field and map skills
• Develop 3D visualisation skills
• Accessible parallel provision field trips
• www.see.leeds.ac.uk/virtual-landscapes/
• serc.carleton.edu/teachearth/activities/197181

.html

Virtual Landscapes Project

http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/virtual-landscapes/

• Update an older web-based exercise
• Worked initially with Leeds Arts

University

• Created by geologists not games

designers…

• Background coding and so loading/

running speeds not optimised!

• Unity updates regularly with older

versions becoming obsolete making landscapes difficult to edit

Project Background

http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/virtual-landscapes/

• Play online or download for PC and Mac:
• 3D geological maps
• 3D topographic map
• Lighthouse Bay
• Download only for PC and Mac:
• Rhoscolyn, Anglesey
• Download only for PC and older Mac OS*:
• Three River Hills

*Possible to use apps that allow PC content to run on Mac – more details from Mark

How to use

http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/virtual-landscapes/

Designed as an in-class exercise with paper field slip and notebook Map a virtual landscape populated with rock outcrops Tasks: produce a geological map, cross section, stratigraphic column and field report

Geological Mapping and Field Skills

http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/virtual-landscapes/

Lighthouse Bay, Three River Hills and Rhoscolyn

http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/virtual-landscapes/

• GPS, how to use coordinates to locate

features on a map and how to add data readings to a field slip, symbols used etc.

Basic mapping skills

Dead sheep!

http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/virtual-landscapes/

Lighthouse Bay

Conformable sequence of sediments dipping 090/22N Takes 2 to 4 hours to map depending on experience 33 outcrops

http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/virtual-landscapes/

Lighthouse Bay Stratigraphy

Fossiliferous limestone (Lower-mid Jurassic) Coarse grained sandstone with graded bedding Fine grained, cross bedded sandstone Fossiliferous limestone (Upper Jurassic) Black shales

http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/virtual-landscapes/

Lighthouse Bay

Reading the landscape Outcrop colour matches rock type Vegetation varies with rock type

http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/virtual-landscapes/

Lighthouse Bay

Short exercise suggestion: Look at the vegetation can you identify a pattern? How might this help you identify the underlying geology? Find an outcrop in each type of vegetation. Does this confirm

• r disprove your theory?

http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/virtual-landscapes/

Lighthouse Bay

Short exercise suggestion: Map one boundary by walking the area then construct the boundary using structure contours and compare the two

http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/virtual-landscapes/

Three River Hills

Complex geology – including a syncline with an overturned and sheared out limb 2 – 3 days to map whole area depending

• n experience (over 100 outcrops)

Minibus “teleport” from beach to hill top

http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/virtual-landscapes/

Three River Hills

Short exercise suggestion: Map a transect along the northern river and draw the cross section

http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/virtual-landscapes/

Three River Hills

Field sketches include important information! In this case the same beds are now overturned and deformed.

http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/virtual-landscapes/

Three River Hills

Short exercise suggestion: Map the west coast to just east of the normal fault – look at outcrop pattern of shallow dipping units and topography Short exercise suggestion: Map the normal fault using the compass to follow it along strike

http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/virtual-landscapes/

Virtual Rhoscolyn, Anglesey

Two versions: 1) a mapping exercise created for an accessible field class 2) an online version of a year 2 structural geology field class

http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/virtual-landscapes/

Virtual Rhoscolyn, Anglesey

Quartzite

Outcrops are part of the texture of the landscape rather than blocks Notebooks are flags for data

Thin bedded semi-pelites and pelites

Boundary mapping aided by topography and vegetation

http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/virtual-landscapes/

Virtual Rhoscolyn, Anglesey

• Sequence of folded and cleaved

meta-sediments

• Map as a simple asymmetric

anticline

• Add in cleavage data
• Plot and analyse data on

stereonets

• Add in discussion of 3D models
• Curved structure contours

http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/virtual-landscapes/

Virtual Rhoscolyn field class

• Uses a Rhoscolyn virtual landscape with 3D

models but no embedded data

• Extensive field data are supplied separately
• Includes interpretation of progressive and

polyphase deformations

• Teaching materials at:

https://homepages.see.leeds.ac.uk/~eargel/ VirtualRhoscolyn

• Contact : Geoff Lloyd for more info and

answers G.E.Lloyd@leeds.ac.uk

Topographic 3D model

• Simple model to introduce students to working

with maps

• Potential questions for the map
• Where are the highest and lowest points?
• How far above sea level in metres are you

when standing on the highest point?

• Identify the steepest and shallowest slopes
• Draw a topographic profile and describe

what you would see as you walk along it

• Check out your answers in the 3D world

http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/virtual-landscapes/

http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/virtual-landscapes/

Geological 3D models

• Ask students to create their own outcrop

pattern ‘rules’, e.g.:

• By looking at how the change in dip

effects the apparent thickness of a unit

• By comparing the outcrop patterns in the

valleys as strike and dip varies

• Two versions:
• Dip – use keys 1-6 to change dip

from 0°,11°, 22°, 45°, 67°, 90°

• Strike – use keys 1-8 to change

strike by 45°

http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/virtual-landscapes/

• Students make the same mistakes they make

when learning in the field

• Wander round the landscape with no

clear plan

• “Outcrop capture” – plot on all the
• utcrops then worry about the

interpretation

• Focus on data readings only; fail to record

additional information in notebooks, particularly from the sketches

Observations from the classroom