Today I finished the scanning of all orthophotos that I had for the study area. I now have a mostly completed rock glacier database with locations marked as point features.
The only thing left for me to do is find someway to get the data to Brad so it can be used at a later stage.
I will most likely send him my completed rock glacier database, since it is a relatively small shapefile. The things that take up the most space seem to be the DEM data and orthophotos which are readily available on other websites.
Currently completed 90/90 hours as of 5/7/2009
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Progress for 5/5
Today I have been working on scanning through the additional orthophotos that I have left. I have finished scanning the following counties today:
I also currently have about 750 possible rock glaciers labeled in my rock glacier database, which is much higher than the initial 600 in the original paper.
I will most likely finish up the scanning of the remaining 3 counties tomorrow, and since I have 6 hours left in the independent study I will try to eliminate any errors and gather up all of my data so that I can give it to Brad before the semester is over with.
Currently completed 85/90 hours as of 5/5/2009
- Dolores county
- Gunnison county
- Saguache county
- Conejos county
- Archuleta county
- Rio Grande county
I also currently have about 750 possible rock glaciers labeled in my rock glacier database, which is much higher than the initial 600 in the original paper.
I will most likely finish up the scanning of the remaining 3 counties tomorrow, and since I have 6 hours left in the independent study I will try to eliminate any errors and gather up all of my data so that I can give it to Brad before the semester is over with.
Currently completed 85/90 hours as of 5/5/2009
Friday, May 1, 2009
Progress for 5/1
Today I was able to complete the scanning of 3 counties for my rock glacier database. These 3 counties (La Plata, Hinsdale, and Mineral county) were the hardest yet since they were right in the center of the study area. This meant that nearly the whole county fell into the "probable rock glacier site" overlay I have been using. So basically I had to scan through the whole counties quadrant by quadrant looking for rock glaciers....but I am finally done with these hard counties.
So far I have scanned:
The screenshot below is my progress as of today (5/1/2009) on the rock glacier database. I have the DEM as the base layer, probable rock glacier locations in orange, and actual rock glaciers as triangle-point features.
Currently completed 80/90 hours as of 5/1/2009
So far I have scanned:
- Ouray county
- La Plata county
- San Miguel county
- San Juan county
- Hinsdale county
- Mineral county
- Dolores county
- Gunnison county
- Sagauche county
- Conejos county
- Archuleta county
- Rio Grande county
- Archuleta county
The screenshot below is my progress as of today (5/1/2009) on the rock glacier database. I have the DEM as the base layer, probable rock glacier locations in orange, and actual rock glaciers as triangle-point features.
Currently completed 80/90 hours as of 5/1/2009
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Progress for Wednesday 4/29
Today I started organizing my data and standardizing what I needed from each DEM file which I had split into four equal extents.
For each DEM extent I calculate:
Now that I have all the DEM files and county level data standardized I am going to simply focus on finishing the rock glacier database. I have finished finding rock glaciers in the upper left quadrant, and now I am going to complete the other ones with the 20 or so hours that I have left in this independent study.
As far as scanning the orthophotos I have totally finished the following counties:
Currently completed 74/90 hours as of 4/29/2009
For each DEM extent I calculate:
- slope
- aspect
- hillshade
- elevation > 2800
This image displays what areas in the study extent are greater than 2800m in Orange
Now that I have all the DEM files and county level data standardized I am going to simply focus on finishing the rock glacier database. I have finished finding rock glaciers in the upper left quadrant, and now I am going to complete the other ones with the 20 or so hours that I have left in this independent study.
As far as scanning the orthophotos I have totally finished the following counties:
- Ouray
- San Miguel
- San Juan
- Mineral
- Hinsdale
- La Plata
- Dolores
- Gunnison
- Sagauche
- Conejos
- Rio Grande
- Archuleta
This screenshot show the current distribution of the rock glacier database as of 4/29/2009 with the DEM as the base layer, elevation > 2800 in orange, and rock glaciers as triangles.
Currently completed 74/90 hours as of 4/29/2009
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Progress for 4/28
Today I was focused mainly on completing the rock glacier database. I found a new source of much higher resolution orthos that I'm using and it's making identification much easier. Today I finished finding all rock glaciers in San Miguel county and I hope to get finished with the database by sometime next week.
Here is a screenshot of rock glaciers that I found in San Miguel:
Currently completed 70/90 hours as of 4/28/2009
Here is a screenshot of rock glaciers that I found in San Miguel:
Currently completed 70/90 hours as of 4/28/2009
Thursday, April 23, 2009
DEM processing and more rock glacier database features
I had been previously using Google Earth to find rock glaciers in the study area, using a overlayed layer that showed me the most likely places. I figured that I could easily convert the KML file over to ArcGIS but it seems like it won't be very efficient. I've decided to start using the orthophotos I have already downloaded and fully work in ArcGIS so that I can write features directly to a shapefile or database.
The first thing that I did today was divide my DEM and my study area up into 4 parts. I wanted to go back and process everything in sections since the original DEM file was so huge and hard to navigate around. I will be using these four study areas for the completion of the rock glacier database.
This screenshot shows the four areas the main study area is divided into. The overlap of the DEM is from the quadrangles of the original data. I am currently processing these DEMs so that they will be in four separate files as well, making processing the individual parts much easier. Since this clip operation is computationally intensive, I have left all four to finish overnight via a script.
The next thing that I will do is finish downloading the orthophotos for the areas that I need. Since not all the counties are actually favorable for rock glaciers, I will only get the files that I absolutely need and get rid of the rest. The orthophotos take up a lot of disk space.
I currently still only have about 150 rock glaciers in ArcGIS, I am hoping that I can find another source of orthos since my current ones don't seem to be the best quality. I am using Google Earth in conjunction with the older orthos in order to verify a rock glacier is actually there.
Later this week I hope to be fully finished with the rock glacier database so that I can start doing analysis on the ones that I have found.
Currently completed 66/90 hours as of 4/23/2009
The first thing that I did today was divide my DEM and my study area up into 4 parts. I wanted to go back and process everything in sections since the original DEM file was so huge and hard to navigate around. I will be using these four study areas for the completion of the rock glacier database.
This screenshot shows the four areas the main study area is divided into. The overlap of the DEM is from the quadrangles of the original data. I am currently processing these DEMs so that they will be in four separate files as well, making processing the individual parts much easier. Since this clip operation is computationally intensive, I have left all four to finish overnight via a script.
The next thing that I will do is finish downloading the orthophotos for the areas that I need. Since not all the counties are actually favorable for rock glaciers, I will only get the files that I absolutely need and get rid of the rest. The orthophotos take up a lot of disk space.
I currently still only have about 150 rock glaciers in ArcGIS, I am hoping that I can find another source of orthos since my current ones don't seem to be the best quality. I am using Google Earth in conjunction with the older orthos in order to verify a rock glacier is actually there.
Later this week I hope to be fully finished with the rock glacier database so that I can start doing analysis on the ones that I have found.
Currently completed 66/90 hours as of 4/23/2009
Monday, April 20, 2009
Finished final poster and more glacier identification progress
I submitted my final poster for the undergrad symposium, although I was not able to be there due to some unforeseen problems with traveling.
The screenshot below shows what my final poster looked like, even though I didn't really get a chance to put refining touches on it, I think it worked out well.
What I have been working on mostly today is a way to refine my rules for locating probable rock glacier locations and trying to complete my final database. The original paper had about 600+ rock glaciers, and as of today I have about 110. I hope that by the end of the this Independent Study I will have a number close to that so that I can do some more analysis with the data.
Currently completed 60/90 hours as of 4/20/2009
The screenshot below shows what my final poster looked like, even though I didn't really get a chance to put refining touches on it, I think it worked out well.
What I have been working on mostly today is a way to refine my rules for locating probable rock glacier locations and trying to complete my final database. The original paper had about 600+ rock glaciers, and as of today I have about 110. I hope that by the end of the this Independent Study I will have a number close to that so that I can do some more analysis with the data.
Currently completed 60/90 hours as of 4/20/2009
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Progress for 4/11
Today I have been mostly working on putting the finishing touches on my poster for next week. I have been using some images from this blog, as well as generating some other nice visuals to make things look nice. I used ArcScene to render my DEM in 3D which made for a very nice visualization of the study areas topology.
I am also compiling a map that shows the study area in relation to Colorado and the US, as well as major cities near there. I will also be putting the original hand drawn map in to compare with.
Another thing that I have completed is the abstract of the report and a broad outline of the methodology. I currently have a flowchart that shows the processes that I have used and it makes for a nice visual as well.
I will post some of these screenshots to the blog when I get back home to my Mac where I have the poster saved at the moment. I will also post a image of the final poster as soon as I feel it is ready to be published.
Currently completed 54/90 hours as of 4/10/2009
I am also compiling a map that shows the study area in relation to Colorado and the US, as well as major cities near there. I will also be putting the original hand drawn map in to compare with.
Another thing that I have completed is the abstract of the report and a broad outline of the methodology. I currently have a flowchart that shows the processes that I have used and it makes for a nice visual as well.
I will post some of these screenshots to the blog when I get back home to my Mac where I have the poster saved at the moment. I will also post a image of the final poster as soon as I feel it is ready to be published.
Currently completed 54/90 hours as of 4/10/2009
Friday, April 10, 2009
Progress for 4/10
Today I have been working on the new orthophotos I have downloaded and luckily they seem to have been taken in the Spring/Summer. I was able to complete finding the rock glaciers in Ouray County and the area around Telluride. I am using these datasets as the basis for my poster, since I am not sure that I will have a fully completed database by next week.
I also had a chance to move the labels I created in Google Earth over to an ArcGIS point shapefile based on their latitude/longitude. So far I have about 30 rock glaciers in Ouray and Telluride. Based on the +600 number in the other paper, I'm sure I have a long way to go. I am also using the statistics generated from the original glacier inventory (like elevations >2,500m) to make the searching process a bit easier. I will post more information on this as soon as I get it.
I have also been putting together my poster. So far I have my abstract and a ton of screenshots to choose from. I am also working on a flowchart for my project methodology and some other things. It seems to be coming together nicely and I hope to be finished with this by this weekend if at all possible.
Currently completed 50/90 hours as of 4/10/2009
I also had a chance to move the labels I created in Google Earth over to an ArcGIS point shapefile based on their latitude/longitude. So far I have about 30 rock glaciers in Ouray and Telluride. Based on the +600 number in the other paper, I'm sure I have a long way to go. I am also using the statistics generated from the original glacier inventory (like elevations >2,500m) to make the searching process a bit easier. I will post more information on this as soon as I get it.
I have also been putting together my poster. So far I have my abstract and a ton of screenshots to choose from. I am also working on a flowchart for my project methodology and some other things. It seems to be coming together nicely and I hope to be finished with this by this weekend if at all possible.
Currently completed 50/90 hours as of 4/10/2009
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Progress for 4/7/2009
Today I have finally begun the process of actually locating rock glaciers using the downloaded orthophotos. Using the geo-referenced map as a guide, I started looking for rock glaciers near Telluride, CO.
I started using Google Earth to search through the orthophotos since the lag time when searching around the orthos is minimal compared to using ArcGIS. I currently have about 30 rock glaciers near the Telluride and Ouray areas of Colorado. I currently have this set as point features in ArcGIS, but eventually I will begin to convert this into polygon features.
I am getting much better at location the rock glaciers now that I have a little more experience in doing so. I hope that I have enough material to start on my poster for the undergrad research symposium. I figure that I don't have to be fully finished with the rock glacier inventory for the poster, just have some results that are good for display on my poster.
I started this morning looking at only North facing slopes and altitudes about 2,500m, using a shapefile I automatically generated using the DEM data. But I quickly found out that this was an incorrect move on my part since I found several rock glaciers on south-facing slopes. Currently I am searching around haphazardly for whatever I can find. I am using the clusters of already mapped rock glaciers in the older map for guidance, and it seems to be working well. However, I am not finding them in the numbers originally recorded. I am not sure if this is because they have dissapeared since the 70's or if my lack of experience is to blame.
A big problem that I have been running into is the fact that some of the orthophoto tracts were taken in Winter when there was alot of snow fall. This is making the location of rock glaciers in these areas nearly impossible to find. I am currently looking for another source of orthophotos that will hopefully solve this problem.
Next week I will be putting the finishing touches on my poster and trying to find more rock glaciers to add to my ever growing database.
I will post a few screenshots of my progress below:
This is an example of one of the more well-defined rock glaciers I found
This is the current inventory of rock glaciers near Telluride
I started using Google Earth to search through the orthophotos since the lag time when searching around the orthos is minimal compared to using ArcGIS. I currently have about 30 rock glaciers near the Telluride and Ouray areas of Colorado. I currently have this set as point features in ArcGIS, but eventually I will begin to convert this into polygon features.
I am getting much better at location the rock glaciers now that I have a little more experience in doing so. I hope that I have enough material to start on my poster for the undergrad research symposium. I figure that I don't have to be fully finished with the rock glacier inventory for the poster, just have some results that are good for display on my poster.
I started this morning looking at only North facing slopes and altitudes about 2,500m, using a shapefile I automatically generated using the DEM data. But I quickly found out that this was an incorrect move on my part since I found several rock glaciers on south-facing slopes. Currently I am searching around haphazardly for whatever I can find. I am using the clusters of already mapped rock glaciers in the older map for guidance, and it seems to be working well. However, I am not finding them in the numbers originally recorded. I am not sure if this is because they have dissapeared since the 70's or if my lack of experience is to blame.
A big problem that I have been running into is the fact that some of the orthophoto tracts were taken in Winter when there was alot of snow fall. This is making the location of rock glaciers in these areas nearly impossible to find. I am currently looking for another source of orthophotos that will hopefully solve this problem.
Next week I will be putting the finishing touches on my poster and trying to find more rock glaciers to add to my ever growing database.
I will post a few screenshots of my progress below:
This is an example of one of the more well-defined rock glaciers I found
This is the current inventory of rock glaciers near Telluride
Example of a few rock glaciers nearly invisible because of winter snow cover
Currently completed 46/90 hours as of 4/7/2009
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Progress for 4/2/2009
This week I have been downloading new sets of Orthophotos that I hope will aide me in finding and mapping the rock glaciers. The current orthos I have are at the county level and don't provide much detail. The new ones I am currently downloading cover the entire extent of the study area.
I will be using Ouray county for my first "test case" to find rock glaciers and use it as a model to find other ones in our study area. I have been pouring through the imagery and have found 3-4 instances of what I believe are rock glaciers in this county. I am also going to try to use the old map from the original paper to find the areas that were marked in 1979 around the Telluride region.
As far as the DEM data goes, I have a huge DEM that covers the entire study area at the moment. I am currently looking for a way to split it into sections so that it will be easier to work with. Then I will go through the process of creating slope/aspect maps for these split DEM files. I tried to do the slope/aspect processing for the large DEM but found out that it would take entirely too long to finish.
I hope that I can get a good shapefile of rock glaciers for Ouray county next week, so that I can extend to other areas and begin compiling a good database of the other ones I find. This should let me get to the point where I can start getting my poster finished with all the data that I need.
Currently completed 40/90 hours as of 4/1/2009
I will be using Ouray county for my first "test case" to find rock glaciers and use it as a model to find other ones in our study area. I have been pouring through the imagery and have found 3-4 instances of what I believe are rock glaciers in this county. I am also going to try to use the old map from the original paper to find the areas that were marked in 1979 around the Telluride region.
As far as the DEM data goes, I have a huge DEM that covers the entire study area at the moment. I am currently looking for a way to split it into sections so that it will be easier to work with. Then I will go through the process of creating slope/aspect maps for these split DEM files. I tried to do the slope/aspect processing for the large DEM but found out that it would take entirely too long to finish.
I hope that I can get a good shapefile of rock glaciers for Ouray county next week, so that I can extend to other areas and begin compiling a good database of the other ones I find. This should let me get to the point where I can start getting my poster finished with all the data that I need.
Currently completed 40/90 hours as of 4/1/2009
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Progress for 3/29
Today I took time to fix all the DEM data so that I would have one large file that covered the entire study area. Before i executed the merge operation, I had to compile all the DEM quads that I had for merging.
After i had all the data collected I did the Merge command for every 15 DEM files. I did this because last night I set all the files to Merge and it ended up not finishing when I left it overnight. Since i did the DEM merges in sections, I ended up with about 15 new DEM files, which I ended up merging into the final, large DEM file.
All this took quite a long time since the processing required to merge the DEM files is very high. The data size of the DEM is also another issue since it takes up more that 1GB on my computer.
Tomorrow I will be creating slope, aspect, and insolation files from the new merged DEM files that I created today.
Currently completed 34/90 hours as of 3/29/2009
After i had all the data collected I did the Merge command for every 15 DEM files. I did this because last night I set all the files to Merge and it ended up not finishing when I left it overnight. Since i did the DEM merges in sections, I ended up with about 15 new DEM files, which I ended up merging into the final, large DEM file.
All this took quite a long time since the processing required to merge the DEM files is very high. The data size of the DEM is also another issue since it takes up more that 1GB on my computer.
Tomorrow I will be creating slope, aspect, and insolation files from the new merged DEM files that I created today.
Currently completed 34/90 hours as of 3/29/2009
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Progress for 3/24
Today I focused on correcting the DEM data so that it would fill out the entire study area. In order to accomplish this task, I took the 10m DEM data from each county and found a way to mosaic it across the entire study area. When I was finished I ended up with 252 different DEM maps that were representative of the Quadrangle indexes the area covers. I am currently looking for a way to merge these into one file, but at the moment I am having no luck in the matter.
If it is in fact possible to merge these files, I will be able to create the aspect, slope, and other maps from this DEM data to aide in the research. If not i will have to find another method to consolidate this data since 252 different files for each file type is not sufficient.
Today also gave me a chance to sort through all of my data and put them into identifiable folders with appropriate file names. This took a very long time, however, I know that it will save me alot of time in the future now that the file names and folders are representative of what's actually in them. Now I have folders sorted by county and the files named by what their function is. This makes my database much more usable and efficient.
My goals for the next time I work on the project are:
If it is in fact possible to merge these files, I will be able to create the aspect, slope, and other maps from this DEM data to aide in the research. If not i will have to find another method to consolidate this data since 252 different files for each file type is not sufficient.
Today also gave me a chance to sort through all of my data and put them into identifiable folders with appropriate file names. This took a very long time, however, I know that it will save me alot of time in the future now that the file names and folders are representative of what's actually in them. Now I have folders sorted by county and the files named by what their function is. This makes my database much more usable and efficient.
My goals for the next time I work on the project are:
- find a way to consolidate DEM data
- use a sample county to start the process of identifying rock glaciers and examine the attributes of the natural features in these areas
- using the information I find, start the process of making a model builder to automate the process of looking for rock glaciers
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Today's progress
Today I finished the final downloads of all of the county level data sets that I need. I now have a huge collection of data for the study area which is about 9GB total. Now that I have finished collecting and organizing the data, I can begin to do analysis and start to map rock glaciers. I will hopefully be able to begin analysis this weekend.
Since the orthophotos that I have collected are organized by grid (high resolution) it seems that they are very large and make the computer very slow when loading. Not to mention that each county has about 30 raster files associated with it (see screenshot below). I will be using these for now, but I am in the progress of downloading the composite images for each county that are clipped to the county boundary. Unless there is some way that I can combine all the grid images from the current ortho-photos that I do have, I don't think they will be very useful and they take up alot of space. Once I have the smaller, newer NRCS composite orthos I can compare the 2 and see which is best.
It's obvious in this screen shot that the orthos are defined by the ortho quad grids. This is useful when indexing the files on a server, but it makes it so that adjacent counties often share the same grids. I could manually clip these but for the time being I am going to check on the other orthos available to see if they will suffice.
I have also finally been able to view the DEM elevation data that Brad sent me, along with the hill shades for that area. It seems like the current extent of his data doesn't entirely fill out the study area so additional elevation files will be needed (see screenshot below). I already have a few of these 10-m DEM's for the area that is missing and I will add them in later when I know exactly what is missing.
By looking at this screen shot you can see that the upper north and west side of the study area are not completed. I am currently in the process of downloading the 10-m DEM's for the counties that are not included.
While I had time today I went ahead and calculated slope, aspect, and zonal statistics for the DEM's that I do have. I will post a few screenshots of this stuff below as well.
This huge amount of data that I have now collected is much too large for my flash drive, which was my backup storage previously. I do have an Adrive account with 50GB and I have (slowly) been uploading the data there for a backup. Currently the main copies are residing on my local machine in the visualization center where I do most of my work.
Update:
I have determined the following counties need DEM data since the current extent isn't large enough:
Completed 26/90 hours as of March 17th, 2009
Since the orthophotos that I have collected are organized by grid (high resolution) it seems that they are very large and make the computer very slow when loading. Not to mention that each county has about 30 raster files associated with it (see screenshot below). I will be using these for now, but I am in the progress of downloading the composite images for each county that are clipped to the county boundary. Unless there is some way that I can combine all the grid images from the current ortho-photos that I do have, I don't think they will be very useful and they take up alot of space. Once I have the smaller, newer NRCS composite orthos I can compare the 2 and see which is best.
It's obvious in this screen shot that the orthos are defined by the ortho quad grids. This is useful when indexing the files on a server, but it makes it so that adjacent counties often share the same grids. I could manually clip these but for the time being I am going to check on the other orthos available to see if they will suffice.
I have also finally been able to view the DEM elevation data that Brad sent me, along with the hill shades for that area. It seems like the current extent of his data doesn't entirely fill out the study area so additional elevation files will be needed (see screenshot below). I already have a few of these 10-m DEM's for the area that is missing and I will add them in later when I know exactly what is missing.
By looking at this screen shot you can see that the upper north and west side of the study area are not completed. I am currently in the process of downloading the 10-m DEM's for the counties that are not included.
While I had time today I went ahead and calculated slope, aspect, and zonal statistics for the DEM's that I do have. I will post a few screenshots of this stuff below as well.
This huge amount of data that I have now collected is much too large for my flash drive, which was my backup storage previously. I do have an Adrive account with 50GB and I have (slowly) been uploading the data there for a backup. Currently the main copies are residing on my local machine in the visualization center where I do most of my work.Update:
I have determined the following counties need DEM data since the current extent isn't large enough:
- Montezuma County
- Dolores County
- San Miguel County
- Montrose County
- Gunnison County
- Saguache County
- Ouray County
- La Plata County
Completed 26/90 hours as of March 17th, 2009
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
DEM data, related studies, and rule based glacier model
I was able to use the NED DEM datasets Brad gave me last week to add to my ever growing database of spatial data for SW Colorado. Since I do not currently have a full version of ArcInfo that I can use this week since I am home for Spring Break, I will have to wait until next week to product the datasets I need from these DEM's. Once I do have access to ArcGIS tools I should be able to start the first part of a rule-based model that will allow me to identify potential rock glacier fomation areas. Once this is acquired, I will manually search these areas for indications of rock glaciers and map them as polygon features to later be added to the database.
In the meantime I have been putting in orders for more data at USDA NRCS for the remaining counties that I posted earlier here: http://kclyons09.blogspot.com/2009/02/study-area-defin.html . I am currently waiting on them to send me a link to download the rest of the counties containing the same data files I requested for Ouray county last week. Since they have download quotas on all of their spatial data I am only able to download about 1 county dataset every day. Hopefully by the time I am back from Spring break I will have this data collection completed.
Since I do not currently have access to ArcGIS I have been looking ahead at how to complete the process of rock glacier identification. I started today by looking up all of the relevent journal articles pertaining to rock glaciers, remote sensing, and GIS.
I have also discovered a worldwide glacier database which I hoped would identify a few of the rock glaciers in the study area. Unfortunately, it seems that due to the debris, lichen, and other issues they are not easily identifiable as other glaciers the system identified from remote sensing. The database I have been using is called GLIMS and is accessible at: http://nsidc.org/cgi-bin/get_metadata.pl?id=nsidc-0272 .
After discovering this information I started to research other Journal articles pertaining to rock glaciers, their formation and how to find them. I found several good resources that are good starting points in developing my rock glacier database. I have listed these articles below and the PDF files are accessible through the library or my Adrive data store.
After reading a Journal article by Brenning (2009) entitled "Benchmarking classifiers to optimally integrate terrain analysis and multispectral remote sensing in automatic rock glacier detection" in which he benchmarks several different algorithms to identify rock glaciers in the San Juan Mountains in Colorado, which comprise most of our study area. He concludes that a combination of remote sensing and terrain analysis are the best methods for rock glacier identification. It is also noted that current remote sensing techniques do not have the ability to map rock glaciers since they do not have a distinct spectral signal.
I will be posting more journal articles and links to related websites as I come across them.
Related studies relevant to this project:
Brenning (2009) -- "Benchmarking classifiers to optimally integrate terrain analysis and multispectral remote sensing in automatic rock glacier detection"
Download PDF here
Millar and Westfall (2007) -- "Rock glaciers and related periglacial landforms in the Sierra Nevada, CA, USA; inventory, distribution and climatic relationship"
Download PDF here
Konrad, et al. (1999) -- "Rock glacier dynamics and paleoclimatic implications"
Download PDF here
Esper-Angillieri (2008) -- "A preliminary inventory of rock glaciers at 301S la
Cordillera Frontal of San Juan, Argentina"
Download PDF here
GIS and Rock Glaciers in Norway:
http://nsidc.org/cgi-bin/get_metadata.pl?id=ggd284
Currently 19/90 hours completed as of March 10th, 2009
In the meantime I have been putting in orders for more data at USDA NRCS for the remaining counties that I posted earlier here: http://kclyons09.blogspot.com/2009/02/study-area-defin.html . I am currently waiting on them to send me a link to download the rest of the counties containing the same data files I requested for Ouray county last week. Since they have download quotas on all of their spatial data I am only able to download about 1 county dataset every day. Hopefully by the time I am back from Spring break I will have this data collection completed.
Since I do not currently have access to ArcGIS I have been looking ahead at how to complete the process of rock glacier identification. I started today by looking up all of the relevent journal articles pertaining to rock glaciers, remote sensing, and GIS.
I have also discovered a worldwide glacier database which I hoped would identify a few of the rock glaciers in the study area. Unfortunately, it seems that due to the debris, lichen, and other issues they are not easily identifiable as other glaciers the system identified from remote sensing. The database I have been using is called GLIMS and is accessible at: http://nsidc.org/cgi-bin/get_metadata.pl?id=nsidc-0272 .
After discovering this information I started to research other Journal articles pertaining to rock glaciers, their formation and how to find them. I found several good resources that are good starting points in developing my rock glacier database. I have listed these articles below and the PDF files are accessible through the library or my Adrive data store.
After reading a Journal article by Brenning (2009) entitled "Benchmarking classifiers to optimally integrate terrain analysis and multispectral remote sensing in automatic rock glacier detection" in which he benchmarks several different algorithms to identify rock glaciers in the San Juan Mountains in Colorado, which comprise most of our study area. He concludes that a combination of remote sensing and terrain analysis are the best methods for rock glacier identification. It is also noted that current remote sensing techniques do not have the ability to map rock glaciers since they do not have a distinct spectral signal.
I will be posting more journal articles and links to related websites as I come across them.
Related studies relevant to this project:
Brenning (2009) -- "Benchmarking classifiers to optimally integrate terrain analysis and multispectral remote sensing in automatic rock glacier detection"
Download PDF here
Millar and Westfall (2007) -- "Rock glaciers and related periglacial landforms in the Sierra Nevada, CA, USA; inventory, distribution and climatic relationship"
Download PDF here
Konrad, et al. (1999) -- "Rock glacier dynamics and paleoclimatic implications"
Download PDF here
Esper-Angillieri (2008) -- "A preliminary inventory of rock glaciers at 301S la
Cordillera Frontal of San Juan, Argentina"
Download PDF here
GIS and Rock Glaciers in Norway:
http://nsidc.org/cgi-bin/get_metadata.pl?id=ggd284
Currently 19/90 hours completed as of March 10th, 2009
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
County Data Collection Progress
After searching around for the best sites to get county level data, I have come to the conclusion that http://datagateway.nrcs.usda.gov/GatewayHome.html is the best one. Provided by the USDA and NRCS this site allows FTP downloads by county and offers a wide range of GIS shape files.
Today I have been trying to collect the data for one county (ouray county) to try to set up a standard dataset that I will use to find the rock glaciers and explain their existence. At the moment I have the following data for this county:
Also, I have re-referenced the original map of the study area to line up with the lat/long lines instead of the rivers which gave considerable error before. The current raster also has a high error but it fills the study area correctly and is easier to read. Here is the image:
Today I have been trying to collect the data for one county (ouray county) to try to set up a standard dataset that I will use to find the rock glaciers and explain their existence. At the moment I have the following data for this county:
- 12-Digit Watershed Boundary Dataset 1:24,000
- Digital Ortho Quad County Mosaic by APFO
- Digital Ortho Quad County Mosaic by NRCS
- Enhanced Digital Ortho Quad TerraServer
- 2006 National Ag. Imagery Program Mosaic
- Geographic Names - Populated Places
- National Land Cover Dataset by State
- Soil Survey Spatial and Tabular Data (SSURGO 2.2)
- U.S. General Soil Map (STATSGO)
- U.S. General Soil Map (STATSGO) - State Subset
- Annual Average Precipitation by State
- Monthly Average Precipitation by State
- Annual Minimum Temperature by State
- Annual Maximum Temperature by State
- Annual Average Temperature by State
Also, I have re-referenced the original map of the study area to line up with the lat/long lines instead of the rivers which gave considerable error before. The current raster also has a high error but it fills the study area correctly and is easier to read. Here is the image:
Currently 16/90 hours completed as of March 3rd, 2009
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Study Area Defined and Geo-Reference problems
I originally tried to scan and use the JPEG image of the study area from the paper by P.White from 1979 to define the study area. I used the geo-referencing toolbar to accomplish this, and I used a hydrology dataset with rivers to line up the image. After choosing several control points and executing the algorithm, I ended up with a geo-referenced image with a high RMS error around the edges where there were no control points to snap too.
In order to create a shapefile that would define the study area, I instead used the lines of Latitude/Longitude in the original paper to create this shapefile in arcmap. Using the "go to X, Y" toolbox, I was able to enter the bounds of the study area to create control points which I snapped my study area polygon shapefile too. This created the shapefile in the screenshot below, with the original study area from which is was derived directly above it.
The lines of longitude that define the study area are: 37(deg)N and 38(deg)30'N
The lines of latitude that define the study area are: 106(deg)30'W and 108(deg)30'W
The next step will be taking all of my data and determining how to best clip to fit the study area. I have now identified the counties that lie in this area which are:
This was determined by doing a "select by location" query using the study area as the base and selecting all counties that intersect. See screenshot below for detailed view of containing counties.
Later this week I will be working on getting as much county level data as possible now that I have identified which counties are contained in the study area. After this data is acquired I will try to clip/mosaic as nessessary to standardize all my data to fit the study area.
Currently 14/90 hours completed as of Feb. 24th, 2009
In order to create a shapefile that would define the study area, I instead used the lines of Latitude/Longitude in the original paper to create this shapefile in arcmap. Using the "go to X, Y" toolbox, I was able to enter the bounds of the study area to create control points which I snapped my study area polygon shapefile too. This created the shapefile in the screenshot below, with the original study area from which is was derived directly above it.
The lines of longitude that define the study area are: 37(deg)N and 38(deg)30'N
The lines of latitude that define the study area are: 106(deg)30'W and 108(deg)30'W
The next step will be taking all of my data and determining how to best clip to fit the study area. I have now identified the counties that lie in this area which are:
- Rio Grande County
- San Juan County
- Hinsdale County
- Montezuma County
- Conejos County
- Gunnison County
- La Plata County
- Saguache County
- Dolores County
- Mesa County*
- Montrose County
- San Miguel County
- Mineral County
- Archuleta County
- Ouray County
This was determined by doing a "select by location" query using the study area as the base and selecting all counties that intersect. See screenshot below for detailed view of containing counties.
Later this week I will be working on getting as much county level data as possible now that I have identified which counties are contained in the study area. After this data is acquired I will try to clip/mosaic as nessessary to standardize all my data to fit the study area.
Currently 14/90 hours completed as of Feb. 24th, 2009
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Hours update and some progress 2/8
Today I have been collecting data from the different places around the web and been organizing them on my local machine. I recently emailed Adrian Jelley about access to the Z: drive which I hope I can get later this week. Once I can obtain that I will begin storing all of my data at that location. But, for the time being it will be kept on my local machine in the Visualization Center.
I have now accumulated a total of 8/90 hours for this independent study.
I have now accumulated a total of 8/90 hours for this independent study.
Project Data Requirements
I have been cataloging the data that I will be collecting and analyzing over the next few weeks. Below is a list of things that need to be collected and stored in the same accessible place.
Remote Sensing Data
Remote Sensing Data
- 2.5m SPOT data
- 1m DOQQ's
- Aerial Photography
- Lithology
- Direct solar isolation from SOLARANALYST
- 1:24,000 DEM
- Soils data - SSURGO
- Study area map
- Older aerial photos
- Original project map
- Precipitation data
- Vegetation data
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Note on hours required to fulfull Independent Study
I have been calculating the hours that I will have to put in to fulfill the requirements of this independent study. Since I was instructed to provide 6 hours per week of work, I have calculated the full weeks of school this semester and multiplied by 6 to get the total hours that I will need to have completed by the end of this semester.
Roughly 15 semester weeks x 6 hours per week = 90 total hours
I am currently at: 6/90 total completed work hours.
I will be updating this blog each time I complete hours to track my progress towards the 90 total.
Roughly 15 semester weeks x 6 hours per week = 90 total hours
I am currently at: 6/90 total completed work hours.
I will be updating this blog each time I complete hours to track my progress towards the 90 total.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Upcoming Tasks
The first things that need to be done for this study are to gain access to the data, geo-reference the older maps, and define the study area.
To do all of these things I will be using the study area map from the project paper, as well as any data that Brad has put on the Z: drive (as soon as I can gain access). After this is finished I will try to find other data and orthophotos related to the project and go from there.
To do all of these things I will be using the study area map from the project paper, as well as any data that Brad has put on the Z: drive (as soon as I can gain access). After this is finished I will try to find other data and orthophotos related to the project and go from there.
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