Geol 3050 Projects 
Project Proposal Due: Sunday, November 1

Guidelines 
 
Your project should be GIS related and answer a spatial question, preferably one you are very interested in yourself and preferably involving geology (although that is not necessary). Topics can be: 

§ What is the volume of rock blown of the top of Mt Saint Helens at the 1980 eruption? 

§ If Barker Dam broke, what would be the effects in Boulder?
§ How has the snowpack over the Sierras changed over the past decade?

§ What is the rate of loss of a particular glacier/ice cap?  How is it changing? 
§ A spatial analysis of volcanoes on Venus, Earth, and Mars.
§ A virtual fieldtrip of a specific area, including a geologic map. 

§ Where can I find gold in this area? 

§ Where is landslide\avalanche hazard in this county? 

§ Etc.. 

 
How to choose a project topic: 

§ Your topic needs to address a spatial question and involve some GIS analysis: (Where? How far? What is the area? Or volume? Overlay?)  

§ You can think of something you always wanted to know, in an area where you grew up, near Boulder, a large-scale question about rocks in the US, a random country, etc… 

§ Or, if you are taking another class or are working for somebody in the department or elsewhere, think of a project for your class or job that you can solve with GIS. It is fine to kill two birds with one stone this way. 

§ Some ideas: 

o Browse the NASA Natural Hazards website and look at the MODIS images. You can import and trace dust plumes, fires, floods, volcanic activity, etc (similar to what we did for the Bolivia Exercise (11)), http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/ or http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/ 

o Think of a fieldwork project, collect GPS points, georectify maps, take pictures, download a DEM from the USGS server (your own GPS data), make a map or virtual fieldtrip. 

o Look at land use or relief for different geologic units. 

o Do a more detailed watershed analysis  and calculate average slope per watershed, area of each geologic unit within a certain watershed (seamless DEM data). 

o How many people live near a geologic hazard (volcano, faults, debris flow zone, etc) (population data from Census data or 

Landscan (the data we used for Bolivia is available for the entire world)). 

o Etc.. 

 
 
Research Data Availability  

§ Can you find the data you need to answer your question? 

This a very important part of your project! 

§ Good ways to find data:  

o via Google: name or topic followed by GIS data often works well 

o via the Map Library downstairs 

o via the provided handout of geologically related datasources. 

o Given to you by somebody else. 

 

Assess the status of your data! 

§ Look at the quality of your data: 

o Is this really what you were looking for? 

o Is your data in GIS format? 

o Can you answer your research question? 

o Did you get raster or vector data and is that ok? 

o Is there any Metadata or contact information provided to tell you what the data means in case you don’t know? 

§ What GIS steps are needed to get the data in the format you want: 

o Georeferencing image data 

o Reprojecting 

o Subsetting (use Clip) 

o Etc… 

 
 
Is your project feasible within the given time frame? 
 
§ Do you think you can do it all in the given time? Are there any obstacles that could take you extra time? 

o If this is the case: re-assess your topic and scope! 

o We have 7 classes of 2 hours available plus some extra homework time.  

If you cannot come up with a project by Friday, please talk to Evan or me. We might have some back-up projects. This does not excuse you from handing in a project proposal. 

Outline of the GIS Project Proposal 
 
The project proposal (due Sunday) needs to contain the following items: 

1. Your Name 

2. Your Topic and Question to Answer 

3. Data (this is important! No data available = No project!) 

a) What data do you need to answer your question 

b) Where do you hope to find this data (internet, library, elsewhere?) 

c) Map Projection you will be using for your project 

d) Approximate reference scale (1:24,000, 1:100,000, etc) 

e) Location of the project (preferably an index-type map) 

f) What data did you already find and what data is still missing? 

 

4. GIS Analysis 

What GIS operations do you think to use? 
(georectifying, editing, buffering, hyperlinking, joining, relating? slope analysis, volume calculation?) 

5. Specific Questions and Concerns 

If you have any questions about specific GIS operations that you are not sure exist or other concerns about your project, please list them here.