Earth 176

Geological Applications of GIS

Syllabus

EARTH 176 Geological Application of GIS - Spring 2015

SYLLABUS
Class Schedule:
Lectures&Labs:
Office Hours:

SSMS 1304
SSMS 1303

T,R
W

3:30-6:00 PM
3:30-5:30 PM

Instructor:

Aaron Bufe

TA:

Eric Shoettle eric_schoettle@umail.ucsb.edu

Website:

Gauchospace

Class Email:

bufe@umail.ucsb.edu

Webb 1032
Webb 1032

earth176gis@gmail.com (use for turning in your lab assignments)

Learning Outcomes:
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are a very important tool for handling spatial data and
have various applications ranging from city planning to crime mapping, hydrology and geology,
disaster recovery, traffic management and logistics. Proficiency in GIS will open a door to a
wide field of careers. This course will introduce you to Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
and their application to the Earth Sciences and give you a hands-on experience on using the
software package ArcGIS to solve geologic problems. At the end of this course you will:
be comfortable working with ArcGIS and Google Earth software
understand how locations and attributes of features on Earth can be represented digitally
know how and where to find/obtain GIS data relevant to the Earth Sciences.
be able to query spatial data to find information and perform a range of spatial analyses
be able to construct a geologic map.
be able to produce effective, aesthetically pleasing maps and present your work on a
poster to a broader audience.
Course Materials
There is no required textbook for this course. However, you MUST bring a 8 GB, windows
friendly hard drive to every class period. If you forget your drive, you wont be able to save your
work!
Course Guidelines
Attendance You are expected to attend class on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Wednesday office
hours are optional.
Punctuality Assignments must be turned in before the start of class on the day that they are
due. Scores will be reduced by 10% for every 24-hr period that they are late.
Respect Please turn off cell phones during class time. Also, please refrain from surfing the net,
watching videos, etc. during lectures. Even if youre bored, it may be distracting for those behind
you. And lets be real, you spend enough time on the internet already.

Earth 176

Geological Applications of GIS

Syllabus

Course Structure
Class time - The scheduled class time will include short lectures to introduce important concepts
and demonstrate techniques, but will mainly be spent working on exercises & assignments either
as a class or individually. Although the Wednesday sessions are optional, attendance is strongly
encouraged, as these sessions provide additional time for you to work on assignments in a
computer lab with either the instructor or TA present to help with problems you encounter.
Assignments - The best way to learn GIS is by doing GIS. With that in mind, there will be a total
of seven weekly lab exercises that you will work on and turn in for a grade. These assignments
are designed to introduce you to the software step by step but expect you to be drawing on
knowledge gained from prior labs.
Final Project - As is tradition in an intro GIS course, each of you will devise and carry out a
GIS-based project throughout the quarter. I encourage you to start thinking about project ideas
early on. You will present the results of your project in a poster session in the Earth Science
building at the end of the quarter.
Quizzes Short quizzes about conceptual questions of the course will be given to assess your
comprehension and motivate you to keep up with the material. Quizzes will be announced.
Grading Scheme
70% from Lab Assignments (7 x 10 pts/ea) including the Lab Midterm (Lab 4)
10% for Quizzes
20% for Final Project
Note that this grade scheme will be modified with +s and s when appropriate
Where can you work outside of class?
Your own Machine:
All UCSB students are eligible for a free 1 year trial Version of ArcGIS. If you have
windows PC with at least 4 GB RAM, this will be a good option for you.
Check out http://www.library.ucsb.edu/mil/esri for instructions on how to download and
install the software (scroll down to the paragraph For your own machine).
For system requirements check out http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/systemrequirements/10.2/index.html#//015100000002000000
Labs on campus with ArcGIS:
Select UCSB Collaborate labs (http://labschedule.collaborate.ucsb.edu/)
The Mac Lab (Webb 1015) has now two Windows Computers with ArcGIS installed.
Because many of these labs close early, take advantage of the scheduled class time and office
hours to get your projects done while the room is reserved for you. I couldnt find a lab that was
open is NOT a valid excuse for late work.
Obligatories
Disable Students Program (DSP) The DSP provides academic support services to eligible
students with temporary and permanent disabilities. It is the responsibility of the student to
contact the DSP office (2120 Student Resource Building, 805-893-2668, http://dsp.sa.ucsb.edu/)
to request assistance and arrange accommodations.

Earth 176

Geological Applications of GIS

Syllabus

Academic Dishonesty - Although you are permitted to work with others, you must turn in YOUR
WORK. Academic dishonesty (e.g. plagiarism) will be dealt with swiftly and brutally. More
information here: http://judicialaffairs.sa.ucsb.edu/CMSMedia/Documents/academicintegflyer.pdf
Helpful Tips
In-built and online help: ESRI has done a good job of incorporating help into ArcGIS. You can
access it from the menu bar on top, or by clicking tool help when any of the Arc toolboxes are
open. If you cant find the answer you need, try a simple google search. There is an amazing
amount of user-generated help docs out there in the internet, and you will be able to solve many
of your problems by using these resources.
ArcGIS Online Help and Tutorials:
http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/main/10.2/
http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/main/10.1/
http://help.arcgis.com/en/arcgisdesktop/10.0/

Map Projections:
http://kartoweb.itc.nl/geometrics/index.html
http://wiki.gis.com/wiki/index.php/Map_projection

General Tips:
https://wikis.uit.tufts.edu/confluence/display/GISatTufts/Tufts+GIS+Tip+Sheets+ArcGIS10

ArcGIS orientation and logistics - Boring, but very important!

ArcGIS includes several applications. The three that we will use in this course are:
ArcMap: mapping software, we will spend most of our time with this.
ArcCatalog: file management program; can open within ArcMap or as a standalone.
ArcScene: allows viewing of 3-dimensional data and creation of fly-through movies.
ArcMap
This is the software we will use to view data, perform spatial analyses, and create map
documents. A map document is stored as a .mxd file. This file only contains the information
where spatial data is stored, how it is arranged and how it is symbolized. All the actual spatial
data is stored as a series of files with various extensions. I like to keep all of the .mxd files in one
folder, and all of the spatial data in other folders. Save early and often!
ArcCatalog
This software is essential for organizing your spatial data. If you were to open a folder
containing your GIS data, you would notice that a single raster or vector file actually comprises
several individual files, each of which is necessary for ArcMap to be able to open it. So, do not
try to manage your files with Windows Explorer! Rather, you should use ArcCatalog, which
shows each file as a single icon, which can be moved, renamed, etc. without having to move or
rename each file individually. ArcCatalog can be opened within ArcMap (by clicking on the file
cabinet icon), where it will show up as a pane on the right side of the window. Youll see a series
of folders that show up automatically, however, you usually have to do some navigation to get to
your personal thumb drive. To avoid that hassle, you can make a folder connection by clicking
the folder with a plus sign near the top of the ArcCatalog pane. Navigate to your thumb drive,
3

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Geological Applications of GIS

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select your root GIS data folder, and hit OK. Now that folder will appear under Folder
Connections, and can be rapidly accessed.
Stay Organized: GIS analyses generate a LOT of files, and you MUST keep them organized.
You will draw on the same datasets throughout this course (and your career), so its worth
making it easy to find the data you need. For this course, you can keep the data files in their
respective lab folders, but for future GIS work, I recommend organizing by data type (e.g.
shapefiles, rasters, etc.) or by project/region (e.g. World, California, Asia, etc.). Filenames: never
use spaces, and always keep them short yet descriptive (for some stupid reason, raster files must
be < 13 characters).
ArcScene
This software is pretty cool. It allows you to view data in three dimensions (as long as those data
have some z-value associated with them; usually elevation). Moreover, you can use it to create
fly-through movies and perspective images of landscapes that can be really valuable for figure
making. Warning: this program sucks up a lot of Memory, and can get really clunky when trying
to view large datasets. So be careful and try to minimize the size of the datasets you want to
visualize before opening them in ArcScene!

Earth 176

Geological Applications of GIS

Syllabus

TENTATIVE SCHEDULE
Week

Day

Date

Mar-31

Th

Apr-02

Apr-07

Th

Apr-09

Apr-14

Th

Apr-16

Apr-21

Th

Apr-24

Apr-28

Th

Apr-30

May-05

Th

May-07

May-12

Th

May-14

8
9
9
10
10

Th
T
Th
T
Th

Lectures
Introduction to GIS systems and
ArcGIS; Basics in cartography.
Introduction to data types and data
organization;
Work on Lab 1
Map esthetics; Importing,
displaying, manipulating and
querying data.
Work on Lab 2
Digital Elevation models and
Spatial Analysis of topographic
data
Work on Lab 3
Finding and georeferencing data;
viewing data in 3D and integration
with Google Earth;

Work due

Lab 1 due

Lab 2 due

Lab 3 due

Lab 4: Midterm
Building a Geologic map

Work on Lab 5
Spatial Statistics

Lab 5 due; Proposal

for Final Projects due

Work on Lab 6
Advanced Analyses
Lab 6 due

May-19

Work on Lab 7
Other GIS Systems; work on Final
Project

Lab 7 due

May-21
May-26
May-28
Jun-02
Jun-04

Work on Final Project

Work on Final Project
Work on Final Project
Work on Final Project
Final Project Poster Presentation

Final Project due