I just happened to stumble upon an update of a tool to Create Geologic Cross Sections, eXacto Section v. 2.0, that I mentioned in July. Jennifer Carrell at the Illinois Geological Survey wrote this tool. The latest update is from December 8, 2010 and can be downloaded at ESRI’s ArcGIS Resource Center. Our office has used previous versions and finds in very useful in creating cross-sections. I have not tried this latest update.

The Arizona Geological Survey has a great looking site with some good information. They have a publication list that can either be downloaded or ordered and are making pdf versions of their recent publications available online. I was going to note that there was no download-able data available until Google told me that they in fact had a WMS/WFS available online. The WMS is a great looking map, I have not gotten the WFS to work, however–probably more due to my abilities than the service.

The Michigan Office of Geological Survey appears to have pdf versions of all the documents in their Digital Geological Library available for download. The transcripts of some early (beginning in 1871) field notes are a fun inclusion in the available archives. Actual GIS data was a bit hard to find although I found both bedrock geology and quarternary geology available from the state Geographic Data Library in shapefile format. I also found oil and gas well data but did not download it.

The Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey has a well organized, appealing website. Their data is easy to find although there is not much GIS data available. Although because I am more interested in sample data sets than anything, the GIS data they do have–statewide geologic map; pleistocene geology, precambrian geology, quaternary geology, (surficial?) geology and bedrock geology for various counties–may actually be a great reference. Other than the statewide geologic map, the data is available on a per-publication basis.

The Iowa Geological Surveyhas a lot of data available to download here. PDF versions of many of their publications can be found in their List of Publications. Their GIS data is minimally attributed for the most part, their public wells data set did have a more robust attribution scheme. One cool feature I found in the wells data is that they provide a hyper-link for many features to an on-line site record.

The South Dakota Geological Survey website provides some good base data–imagery, DRGs, DEMs, and DLGs. There is a searchable database of core cuttings and the state data server has bedrock data for the eastern portion of the state and a statewide layer, presumably surficial geology, called geology. Quad-based geological maps are also available (PDF format) in the Publications and Maps section. The data I downloaded was in shapefile format with minimal attribution.

Took a quick look at the North Dakota Geological Survey’s website for GIS data. The only data I found served directly from their website was surface geology map .pdfs for some 24k and 100k maps. Also available is a search for Oil & Gas wells although I did not see the data was downloadable. Some other publications have .pdfs that can be downloaded. The North Dakota Hub Explorer serves as the state’s official data portal including for GIS data.

I was looking for links to all the State Geological Surveys and found the Association of American State Geologists (AASG) Homepage to have exactly what I needed. I hope to build some sort of inventory of data samples available. If I do one a day, I can be done in 10 weeks, or about 3 months. What I will find the most useful is data distribution methods and data structures.