Bringing the field to students with 'Virtual Field Geology' - Phys.org

University of Washington geologists had acceptable retired to make computer-based tract experiences agelong earlier the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Juliet Crider, a UW subordinate prof of Earth and abstraction sciences, archetypal sent a erstwhile postgraduate pupil and a drone to photograph an iconic Pennsylvania geological tract and aviator a caller attack to tract geology.

Her squad has present completed a virtual tract sojourn to that site, the Whaleback anticline, wherever decades of ember mining person exposed 300-million-year-old folds successful the bedrock. A aviator mentation of the web-based instrumentality was utilized during the pandemic, and a mentation that allows radical to deterioration virtual world headsets to research the geological tract conscionable launched. A UW tract people utilized some tools successful an undergraduate summertime people that for the archetypal clip blended virtual and in-person tract trips.

The UW Virtual Field Geology task has galore goals: to marque geology tract experiences accessible to much people; to papers geological tract sites that whitethorn beryllium astatine hazard from erosion oregon development; to connection virtual "dry run" experiences that complement tract courses and assistance caller students acclimate to the field; and to let technological collaborators to virtually sojourn a tract tract and research it together.

Max Needle, a UW doctoral pupil successful Earth and Space Sciences, utilized his inheritance successful geology to assistance make the virtual tract experiences. He is pb writer of a insubstantial published successful Geoscience Communication that presents the archetypal 2 sites: the Whaleback tract and a fictional tract called "Fold Islands."

"Virtual experiences supply entree to much people, they fto america sojourn sites that are wholly inaccessible, and we deliberation everyone tin payment from a caller mode to interact with the tools of tract geology," Needle said.

Last summer, alternatively of the accepted UW geology six-week tract people successful Montana, the section held a hybrid mentation led by Crider and Cailey Condit, a UW adjunct prof of Earth and abstraction sciences. It combined schoolroom teaching and integer experiences with time trips to the galore geologic sites wrong driving region of the Seattle campus.

"Moving forward, these virtual tract trips are apt going to play a cardinal portion successful making the geosciences much accessible and much equitable," Condit said. "They supply the accidental for each students to beryllium capable to statesman experiencing fieldwork remotely, and larn astir however captious the geologic tract discourse is for the geosciences."

The pandemic altered the project's trajectory. When COVID canceled tract trips, the squad enactment the virtual reality programming connected intermission and focused connected creating a web-based mentation that would beryllium accessible astir rapidly to the astir people. Since the tract launched, it's been accessed much than 1,700 times by UW undergraduates and, aft sharing among the geology teaching community, astir the world. The squad precocious completed the VR version.

Even though radical tin present question and assemble, the squad believes virtual experiences could go portion of a "new normal" for geology probe and education.

"Part of expanding entree to the tract is to assistance radical cognize what to anticipate," Crider said. "To the grade that we tin assistance students expect some the outdoors acquisition and the subject experience, past the uncertainty and possibly anxiousness is reduced, and radical tin absorption connected the learning goals."

The virtual experiences let radical to sojourn the tract tract and usage communal geology tools to measurement angles successful the rock layers oregon predisposition of cracks that explicate a landscape's history. While a virtual enactment benefits anyone challenged by the question and entree to a distant tract site, it besides lets each students and researchers person a "dry run" acquisition and reappraisal techniques earlier reaching the existent location.

In the web-based virtual experience, keyboard commands fto a idiosyncratic locomotion crossed the landscape. Users tin effort assorted tools to measurement distances and angles. Selecting 3 points creates a virtual level and displays its orientation. Data tin beryllium downloaded into a spreadsheet oregon straight into a fashionable geology bundle program.

"What's unsocial astir this acquisition is that it's open-ended, which allows instructors to tailor the lessons and the goals," Crider said. "Students determine what to measure, and wherever to measure, to reply the questions—it's not predetermined. Making those decisions is an important happening to learn."

The virtual acquisition besides gives the idiosyncratic superhuman powers to instantly swoop from 1 spot to another, zoom successful and retired to research a tract astatine antithetic scales.

"One of the chill advantages of the crippled is that you tin fly. There's a small jetpack icon and past you spell up successful the air, and each of a abrupt your position changes, and you tin question rapidly from spot to place," Needle said.

It besides provides entree to sites that person constricted oregon risky access.

"At the Whaleback anticline a batch of the interesting, curved stone geometry is exposed astatine a tallness of 30 feet, wherever you can't locomotion without risking fatality," Needle said.

The squad precocious demonstrated the virtual world mentation of the Pennsylvania site. Although VR requires a peculiar headset, the tract of presumption is larger, and VR offers a consciousness of standard that's adjuvant astatine sites similar the 30-foot-tall Whaleback anticline. An interactive diagnostic lets the idiosyncratic prime up a stone hammer and divided unfastened a 3-D exemplary of a rock.

"As a teaching assistant, I've seen students confronted with challenges successful the tract that spell beyond the world aspect," Needle said. "Or possibly idiosyncratic can't spell into the tract due to the fact that they person atrocious asthma, oregon a peculiar tract tract tin lone beryllium accessed with specialized climbing gear. We deliberation a batch of radical tin payment from these tools."

Needle ran a abbreviated people astatine the Geological Society of America's yearly gathering successful October showing different geologists however to usage the UW bundle to make different virtual tract visits. This was the 3rd specified store he's given, and the largest truthful far. All the bundle utilized for the UW experiences are freely available.

Projects are nether mode for sites successful Pennsylvania, Vermont and California. Needle hopes that someday the bundle mightiness beryllium utilized to sojourn the bottommost of the water oregon the aboveground of different planet.

"I deliberation this is simply a prototype of wherever the tract of geology could beryllium headed successful the future," Needle said.

More information: Mattathias D. Needle et al, Virtual tract experiences successful a web-based video crippled environment: open-ended examples of existing and fictional tract sites, Geoscience Communication (2022). DOI: 10.5194/gc-5-251-2022