New Policy for GNIS

New Policy Regarding the Maintenance of Administrative Feature Names in the GNIS

Effective October 1, 2014: As a result of reprioritized budgets and resources, the decision has been made to suspend the maintenance of feature categories classified in the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) as administrative (i.e., cultural or manmade).

However, a select number of administrative features will continue to be maintained by other USGS programs supporting The National Map. These features will be updated in GNIS on a periodic revision cycle. If you are interested in participating in the USGS National Map Corps program, which “encourages citizens to collect structures data by adding new features, removing obsolete points, and correcting existing data for The National Map database,” please visit the following web site: http://navigator.er.usgs.gov. To identify the administrative features to be maintained through The National Map Corps program, click Structures List, located on the left-hand side of the web page.

If you have further questions, please visit The National Map home page at: http://nationalmap.gov. Inquiries may be submitted to The National Map via the link at the bottom of the page.

 

LA County Assessor Maps Have Moved

Just an FYI to all City GIS staff in LA County.  If you have GIS applications or data that have links to the LA County Assessor maps, you might find them broken now.  It looks like LA County has moved the links since they updated their Property Assessment Information System application here.

For example, this old PDF link:
http://maps.assessor.lacounty.gov/mapping/viewAssessorMapPDF.asp?val=2438-018

has been replaced with this new one:
http://maps.assessor.lacounty.gov/Geocortex/Essentials/REST/sites/PAIS/VirtualDirectory/AssessorMaps/ViewMap.html?val=2438-018

Burbank has a few apps that are broken now.  I bet you do too!  -mike

Death Valley’s Moving Rocks

For at least a century, the moving rocks of Death Valley have presented a puzzle, and researchers have been trying to solve it since 1948.  The rocks, some of them boulders weighing more than 600 pounds, show signs of movement across the desert floor by leaving long trails behind them.

Explanations including dust devils, flooding, hurricane-strength winds, and even UFOs have been offered, but the mystery was finally solved when researchers caught the rocks in the act!

Check out the National Geographic article and watch the video below.

USGS Earthquake 101

The U.S. Geological Survey will host an educational event for the news media focused on earthquakes on Wednesday September 24, 2014. The goal of the event is to provide the press an opportunity to work with USGS staff to build knowledge about and confidence in the information delivery systems and people to create more timely and accurate reporting of earthquakes.

At this event, USGS scientists and public affairs staff will lead sessions in which journalists can refresh knowledge about basic principles about earthquakes, how to improve scientific accuracy when reporting on earthquakes, and about USGS resources to make your job easier. Find out about USGS public domain maps, images, and graphics that can be quickly and freely downloaded and reused following an earthquake.

Who: USGS geologists, geophysicists, and public affairs. See list below.

What: 30-minute plenary session with presentations on reporting on earthquakes and relevant USGS resources, followed by concurrent small group discussions with USGS researchers on various aspects of earthquake science. Subjects will include:

  • Earthquake Early Warning vs. Earthquake Prediction, by Doug Given, Geophysicist
  • Natural vs. Induced Seismicity, by Justin Rubinstein, Geophysicist
  • Emerging New Technology: GPS, InSAR, LiDAR, by Ben Brooks, Geologist
  • Shaking Intensity versus Earthquake Magnitude, by Brad Aagaard, Geophysicist
  • Liquefaction, Landslides, & Fault Rupture, by Tom Holzer, Engineering Geologist
  • USGS Real-time Online Earthquake Products, by David Wald, Geophysicist
  • Is the Number of Large Earthquakes Increasing? by Jeanne Hardebeck, Geophysicist
  • Earthquake Resources on the Web, by Lisa Wald, Geophysicist/Web Content Manager, Webmaster
  • Foreshocks, Main Shocks, and Aftershocks, by Andrea Llenos, Geophysicist and Ruth Harris, Geophysicist
  • Who/how/when and where to go for an interview concerning an earthquake, by Leslie Gordon, Public Affairs Specialist and Susan Garcia, Outreach Coordinator

When: Wednesday, September 24, 2014, 10:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. PDT

Registration: Please register online to participate in the workshop.

Where: U.S. Geological Survey, Main Auditorium, Bldg. 3, 2nd floor, 345 Middlefield Road, Menlo Park, Calif.

Online: The first 30 minutes of the event will be live video-streamed over the web, and archived online for later viewing.

The History of Cartography Project

The History of Cartography Project has been awarded a five-year grant from the National Science Foundation to study the origins and development of modern cartography. The research will facilitate preparation of Cartography in the Nineteenth Century, Volume Five of the groundbreaking History of Cartography series.

This unique, international research and publishing venture, based at the UW-Madison, is dedicated to promoting a deeper understanding of cartography among scholars and the general public. The first three volumes of the series are available in print and are freely available online.  The final three volumes will be published in print, as e-books, and online as well.

historyofcartography

Peter Gould Student Paper Competition

The Health and Medical Geography Specialty Group (HMGSG) invites current undergraduate and graduate students to submit their work to the specialty group’s annual Peter Gould Student Paper Competition. The competition is meant to promote written scholarship by students across the field. Single-authored papers from any medical, health, disability and/or health systems related topic are encouraged.

The deadline for submitting an extended abstract is November 2, 2014.

More information here.

Though the prize is only $100, having your name associated with Peter Gould’s would be a very good thing for an up-and-coming student’s career!

And while you are at it, join the AAG!