|
 Now freed
from the book shelf, the collected knowledge of Illinois’ geologic
past has been digitized, and released online as
ILSTRAT
– an interactive resource for the public, industry, and government
to understand the rocks beneath our feet. Organized as an editable
online database, or wiki,
ILSTRAT
brings to life the best scientific consensus of how Illinois was
built – from the ground
down.
Did you know?
· In
Illinois, we walk around on a relatively thin “skin” of
unconsolidated sand, soils, silts, and glacial deposits that can
range in thickness from a few feet to a few hundred feet.
· Illinois
also has a “basement.” These are Precambrian rocks older than 542
million years, formed before complex multicellular lifeforms began
to appear on Earth. They are found starting 1,500 feet deep in Jo
Daviess County, but plummet continuously southward to the area
around Shawnee National Forest where they are found 14,000 feet
below the surface.
· Ever
heard of Cook County? ILSTRAT tells us that under its ”skin” of
glacial sediments, the bedrock is mostly 420 million- to 440
million-year-old
dolomites composed of the remnants of ancient tropical reefs formed
when Illinois was at the equator!
Geologists study rock layers to locate water and other valuable
resources that form over millions of years. These collected studies
also helped work out our understanding about how the Earth formed
and was changed by climate and movements of the earth’s crust. More
than 500 distinct geologic ‘units’ have been identified so far in
Illinois.
Geologists have discovered a lot about Illinois in the 40 years
since the publication of the reports used initially to build
ILSTRAT. But without a major paper publication to gather them all
together, those revisions and revelations remain scattered in
presentations, papers, and notebooks of individual investigators.
Many of these pending updates await capture in ILSTRAT by those same
investigators, and going forward it will spur regular updates as a
ready repository for new discoveries to advance the scientific
picture. In effect, ILSTRAT provides both a baseline for
understanding the stratigraphy of Illinois, and more importantly, a
framework to update and build to the future.
“Geologists are constantly making new discoveries and refining our
understanding of rock layers,” said ISGS Geologist Scott Elrick.
Geologist Jennifer Obrad, who did much of the heavy lifting in
editing ILSTRAT, offered two examples of major pending additions to
the database. First is an extensive update of Pennsylvanian rocks
(323 million to 299 million years ago) by John Nelson and others.
The second is a compendium of fossils characteristic of the
Platteville Dolomite (485 million to 444 million years ago) by
Dennis Kolata.
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ILSTRAT joins a group of other scientific resources at ISGS intended
to burst the academic bubble by being accessible to the public.
Visual (linked to Google maps), searchable, and mobile (phone
accessible), these databases offer rich information for specialists,
students, hikers, and hobbyists.
· Are
you standing on top of a coal mine? Check
ILMINES.
· Is
there a water aquifer down below?
ILWATER
is the place to go.
· Where
is the nearest oil or gas field?
ILOIL
has the answers.
The newcomer, ILSTRAT, represents an encyclopedic reference to
provide a scientific touchstone for our geologic data. It also can
flexibly accommodate multimedia material that can make data points
more informative and accessible. For example, Google maps
connectivity may be added to increase its ease of use for
visualizing geographic extents of geologic units.
Because ILSTRAT is a living repository for the scientific community,
industry, and the public, geologists at other colleges, other state
geologic surveys and industry can propose updates of information,
logs, and pictures. Even knowledgeable amateurs could help improve
the database with their observations. For instance, the discovery of
a fossil in an area between two units could help better refine a
formation’s age, or the type of biota that once lived there.
The products
of the latest geological technology — such as surface mapping with
lasers, subsurface modeling with magnetism, and state-of-the-art 3D
mapping — will all become important new pieces of data for ILSTRAT
in describing and cataloging the hidden world beneath our feet.
About the Prairie Research Institute:
The Prairie Research Institute (PRI) at the University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign provides objective cutting-edge research and
solutions to allow citizens and decision makers to make choices that
ensure sustainable economic development, enduring environmental
quality, and resource preservation for Illinois and beyond. PRI
comprises the Illinois Natural History Survey, Illinois State
Archaeological Survey, Illinois State Geological Survey, Illinois
State Water Survey, and Illinois Sustainable Technology Center.
www.prairie.illinois.edu
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