GIS Data sources for Geology (global coverage)

 

General lists

DEM Availability (after Guth, P.L., 2004, MICRODEM home page: http://www.usna.edu/Users/oceano/pguth/website/microdem.htm)

Scale Spacing Data series Coverage Provider Web Source Notes
Global 5' (~10 km) ETOPO5

TerrainBase

Entire world, including ocean basins NOAA Global Terrain CD

TerrainBase

 
  2' long (lat has Mercator factor) Smith & Sandwell Predicted topography Entire world, including ocean basins SIO/NOAA Scripps Ideal for base maps, especially for geologists
  SRTM-30_Plus Merge of SRTM30, Smith & Sandwell, and IBCAO Entire world, including ocean basins   Scripps Same format as GTOPO30
  ~30'' Merge of GTOPO30, Smith & Sandwell, and IBCAO Entire world University of Alaska GINA BZIP format (??), and then GMT grids.
Continental 30" (~1 km) DTED 0 Most of the world, land only NGA Geospatial Engine  
    GLOBE Entire world, land only NOAA GLOBE  
    GTOPO30 Entire world, land only USGS GTOPO30 Formula for Raster Calculator (GTOPO--> ARC)

out_grid = con(in_grid >= 32768, in_grid - 65536, in_grid)
 

    SRTM-30 Entire world, land only   SRTM-30 Best current data set at this scale.
Regional 3" (60-90 m) DTED 1   NGA   DoD use only
    SRTM-3   JPL Formula for Raster Calculator (CIGAR --> ARC)

OUTGRID = setnull(SRTMDEM == -32768, SRTMDEM)

 

Entire world except for polar regions (broadly defined) and Australia.

Seamless server directions.

 

Free Satellite Imagery Availability (after Guth, P.L., 2004, MICRODEM home page: http://www.usna.edu/Users/oceano/pguth/website/microdem.htm)

Scale Spacing Data series Coverage Provider Web Source Notes
Global 1 km MODIS Worldwide NASA earthobservatory.nasa.gov Blue Marble.
Regional 30 m Landsat TM Worldwide NASA zulu.ssc.nasa.gov
  • UTM format, 4x6 degree tiles
  • Mr Sid, use Lizardtech viewer to export as Geotiff format
      Much of the world University of Maryland glcf.umiacs.umd.edu Geotiff format.  Compresses TIFFs, but will be about 200-300 MB per scene.
  10 m SPOT Parts of world NIMA Geospatial Engine DOI (CIB in original military format)

 

Global Geographic Data Sets

Global Geology Data Sets (after Guth, P.L., 2004, MICRODEM home page: http://www.usna.edu/Users/oceano/pguth/website/microdem.htm)

Additional resources

 

For questions or comments please contact: zeilinger@geo.uni-potsdam.de