Archiving
The UGS GeoData Archive was developed to store data generated from our ongoing Geologic Data Preservation Project, including scanned documents, reports, photographs, and video and audio files. The intent of our Geologic Data Preservation Project is to convert resources in legacy formats to current digital formats, preserving them for the future and making them easier to find and access. Each resource is assigned to a specific collection, which is part of a theme. The system is based on ResourceSpace, an open source digital asset management system where resources are searched using metadata that describes each resource.
Background
The UGS has collected numerous unpublished reports, maps, memorandums, field notes, and other geologic-hazard and engineering geology documents since the formation of the Site Investigation Section (now Geologic Hazards Program) in 1980. Few copies were ever produced of most of the documents in the collection. These documents are used in geologic-hazard investigations, geologic and engineering geologic mapping projects, during emergency response activities, and in response to public inquiries. The UGS incorporated brief metadata for some of these documents into the now defunct UGS-developed HAZBIB (Microsoft Access) database, starting in 1985. Due to limited metadata entries (title, author, general location, and geologic-hazard category), lack of text-searchable digital files, and use of outdated database technology, the defunct HAZBIB database was replaced with a system built with ResourceSpace in 2010. In response to the needs of other UGS programs and the UGS Geologic Data Preservation Project, the UGS GeoData Archive was extended to collections beyond the original HAZBIB database in 2011.
Scanning
Most paper documents, maps, and reports were digital scanned by Utah Correctional Industries at the Utah State Prison, Draper. Text-based materials were scanned at 300 to 600 dpi on various scanners to produce a single Adobe PDF file of each item with minor enhancement as needed. Enhancement may include page rotation, cropping, and/or removal of labels or other unneeded marks. In addition, optical character recognition (OCR) was performed on each text document or report PDF file, resulting in a text-searchable format. Due to varying quality of original scanned materials, OCR generated text may be incomplete or contain errors. Maps and photographs were scanned on various scanners to produce a TIFF (with ZIP compression enabled), JPEG, or PDF file of each item.
Metadata
Metadata for each resource was entered during scanning (using the Adobe XMP metadata system) and/or uploaded into the system and includes resource type, resource title, author, publisher, publication reference/identification, resource or publication date, availability, geographic location (state, county, country, and USGS 7-1/2' quadrangle name), HAZBIB number, source, abstract/description, keywords, extracted text, resource published for/client, and document type, where available. See the Metadata link on the Help & Advice page for more information on metadata definitions.