From photo-geology to 3D geological models. An open source approach

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1 Research Institute for Geo-Hydrological Protection, Italian National Research Council, Perugia, Italy
2 Dipartimento di Fisica e Geologia, University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy
DOI
10.7287/peerj.preprints.2253v2
Published
Accepted
Subject Areas
Spatial and Geographic Information Systems
Keywords
3D geological model, GRASS GIS, Aerial photo-interpretation, Bedding, Photo-geology, Quaternary deposits
Copyright
© 2016 Santangelo et al.
Licence
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
Cite this article
Santangelo M, Marchesini I, Mirabella F, Bucci F, Cardinali M, Guzzetti F. 2016. From photo-geology to 3D geological models. An open source approach. PeerJ Preprints 4:e2253v2

Abstract

Three-dimensional modeling of geological bodies is a useful tool for multiple applications. Such tasks are usually accomplished starting from field-collected data, which typically suffer from intrinsic limitations such as accessibility constraints and punctuality of data collected. In this work, we explore the reliability of photo-geological mapping from interpretation of aerial photographs in providing data useful to build up 3D geological models. The test was conducted in a 15 km2 in Umbria, central Italy. The three-steps open source GIS procedure that outputs 3D models from photo-geological data was developed using python in GRASS GIS environment and GNU-Linux OS. We maintain that this procedure can have potential broad applications in Earth Sciences, including geological and structural analyses, up to the preliminary evaluation of potential reservoirs.

Author Comment

This is an article intended for the OGRS2016 Collection, Scientific poster session.

Changes with respect to the former version are related to the comments of the reviewer. In particular, more details on the results were provided (a figure was added). The aims of the paper were better explained in the introduction, where also the references list was extended.