Who am I?

Not an existential question...

Edd Lewis

BGS Geologist/Standards Lead (& FOSS advocate)

10 years in MinEx/Mining (>5 in Australia)

2 years in Government (Data StandardsCapacity Building/Mineral Promotion/Resource Policy)

BGS

• National geological survey founded in 1835
• UK custodian of geoscientific information
• Independent
• 600 staff
• Part of UKRI, a not-for-profit public sector research establishment
• Funded by Government & external income
• Offices at Keyworth, Wallingford, Edinburgh & Cardiff

Generic Digital Workflow

GeoVisionary > SIGMA > GroundHog

Central Data Store

GeoVisionary

First immersive 3D Visualisation Facility

February 2005

Virtalis Stereoworks

Christie projector: 1400 x1050 pixels @ 100Hz, 4000 lumens

Main use: display of 3D models from Digital Geoscience Spatial Model Programme

GeoVisionary

GeoVisionary

Originated in BGS – Virtalis R&D collaboration
October 2006: VFR – virtual field reconnaissance – improve results and efficiency of fieldwork using VR technology
Solved the problem of utilising BIG datasets – terabytes of terrain and imagery

Data Integration

Real value realised when data are integrated and interpreted as one

Combine any resolution of elevation data with: imagery, 3D geological models, GIS layers, CAD models, etc seamless movement through the datasets
Supports time
Virtual geological toolkit enables geoscientists to analyse and interpret data

Headsets

Useful low cost visualisation
Immersive
Not so good for working together…

Headsets

Great working environment to understand, interpret and communicate complex 3D information – a common visual language
Greatly increased fieldwork efficiency – make better, faster decisions
Impressive for presentations

Further Info

Training/Customisation/Development

BGS•Σigma

Integrated tool kit for digital geological data capture

Price: Free!

BGS•Σigma

Wanted a new approach with consistant data: field, maps, 3D models, other data products

Prototyped 2001

First release 2006

Latest release 2015

BGS•Σigma

BGS•Σigma

SIGMAdesktop

SIGMAdesktop

Suite of tools to assist in map compilation and decision making

• Combining data from all geologists into one database for generating final data compilation for the project. Entry of field observation points along with linked data
• Cleaning linework
• Generating polygons
• Add more data / hide data

BGS•SIGMate

A taster

A taster

A taster

A taster

A taster

A taster

A taster

A taster

A taster

A taster

A taster

A taster

A taster

A taster

A taster

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A taster

Further Info

Training/Customisation/Development

Groundhog Desktop

GroundHog

Borehole Database Integration

Direct link to BGS & OS Web Services

Collab: BGS, GTK, SGU

Latest release 2020!

Community & Professional Editions

Price: Free! (Community edition)

Boreholes

Cross Sections

Implicit 3D Modelling

Only interpolation engine geared to shallow quaternary deposits

Further Info

Training/Customisation/Development

Knowledge Extraction

Team: Rachel Heaven, Simon Burden, Bob McIntosh, Ike Nkisi-Orji, Marcus Sen, Jo Walsh

Goal

Extract stratigraphic entities and observation locations from unstructured text

Intended benefits:

Interpreted map and model products can contain links to observed data points and conceptual ideas, presenting model uncertainty and provenance

Stratigraphy of an area of interest can be quickly understood from pre-existing literature, saving experts’ time

Explicit and implicit stratigraphic relations can be captured into reusable data for modelling constraints

1. XML Semantic Markup Experiments (early 2000's)

							Physiographic zones 1 and 2 cover the bulk 
							of the study area. Their character is primarily 
							controlled by bedrock type and glacial history. The 
							highly irregular middle zone (2) is underlain by 
							Permian and Triassic
							 rocks; the Permian strata include 
							Upper Permian 
							Zechstein sedimentary rocks that locally
							crop out in the study area.
						

2. Converted to training data

							highly 0
							irregular 0 
							middle 0 
							zone 0
							is 0
							underlain 0
							by 0
							Permian CHRONOSTRAT
							Triassic 0
							rocks 0
							the 0
							Permian CHRONOSTRAT
							strata 0
							include 
							Upper Permian CHRONOSTRAT
							Zechstein LEXICON
							sedimentary 0
						

3. Train a custom Named Entity Recognition (NER) model for strategraphic terms

							java -cp 
							edu.stanford.nlp.ie.crf.CRFClassifier - 
							prop 
						

4. Run text mining using custom NER model for stratigraphy and core NER locations

5. Stratigraphy entities matched to BGS Linked Data Vocabs

6. Locations resolved to geometry using gazetteer

7. Database of mined data with API

9. API supports frequency and corrolation analysis

UKGEOS

A a network of observatories is being established to deliver essential new data from deep underground.

Standards

Value of geospatial is becoming more significant as the public and private sectors further embrace location

Standards play an important role in facilitating interoperability of location information and applications for improved situational awareness, business intelligence and decision making.

Standards Timeline

GIS Data

Recently included GeoPackage in data download options.

Starting to also receive GeoPackage with data requests

Tools

Major issue of symbology tied to ESRI infrastructure

SLYR to the rescue!

BGS Data

Errors due to CRS (OSGB36) but styling is correct

Reports/Publicationas

Moving to Digital First - HTML

PDF publications have left us with significant legacy issues.

HTML UK Gov publishing standard

BGS Version

Only took 6 days!

Wrap Up

BGS always interested in collaboration

In both Research & Technology

Questions?