Collecting, Managing, and Sharing Data Using the StraboSpot Digital Data System in the Field and Lab: Examples from the Western U.S.

Alexandra Snell, Texas A&M University
Maureen Kahn, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Julie Newman, Texas A&M University
Basil Tikoff, University of Wisconsin, Madison
J. Douglas Walker, University of Kansas

Whether in the field or in the lab, structural geologists need a system that makes spatial data easy to compile, access, analyze, and share. The StraboSpot digital data system provides geologists with the infrastructure to collect, manage, explore, and share data digitally. StraboSpot is both a graph database for the storage of new and legacy data, and a robust data visualization and analysis tool. StraboSpot was designed for optimum usability and accessibility, regardless of the user's environment. Access to the database is not limited by device or location, users can access the system via multiple devices, including: 1) a field-based mobile application that runs on iOS and Android mobile devices, and 2) a desktop system. The StraboSpot system is inherently a spatial data system, and can incorporate field and laboratory data at any scale, while maintaining geographic and spatial relationships. At present the StraboSpot system includes structural field data, and is expanding to include sedimentology, petrology, experimental, and microstructural data.

We demonstrate the use of the StraboSpot digital data system through examples of field data collection and imported legacy data from two study areas in the western U.S.; the Twin Sisters ultramafic massif, WA, and the Western Idaho Shear Zone, ID. These two use cases highlight the utility and robust nature of StraboSpot, and how the system helps facilitate the user's workflow. The Twin Sisters ultramafic massif contains a serpentinized strike-slip fault zone that cross cuts high temperature mantle fabrics. StraboSpot incorporates legacy field data, including structural measurements, fault transects, outcrop photos, samples and thin section images. The Western Idaho Shear Zone is a structurally complex region, consisting of multiple lithologies, and demonstrates both StraboSpot's utility when importing legacy field data, and functionality in a field trip setting. In both examples, the database supports the user's research via detailed forms for recording, organizing, searching and sorting all data. StraboSpot provides a single place for interconnected, georeferenced geologic data at every spatial scale. The expanding uses and continued development of StraboSpot will allow for greater access to new types of data through easily searchable compilations of large datasets, and tools for visualization and analysis.

Session

Tectonics of Western North America:Tectonics of Western North America: What's new?