Back before the World Wide Web, in the ancient 1990s when we typed our way across the Internet on wings of DOS, optimistic computer geeks envisioned what could be:
There shall be made a way to gather all the world's knowledge and make it live. You shall point to an image of the globe and zoom in to any location. There shall be displayed anything about that place you seek to know—the vegetation, the human history, the rocks and living species, the subsurface and the weather, the businesses and the morning traffic—whatever you can ask. Like a wizard casting spells, you shall command answers to arise from the information through instant, massive data-crunching analysis.
Today, of course, we can picture that easily as some sort of Web site. It's well within current technology, and people are beginning to make this Digital Earth happen.
Georeferencing the Geolibrary
Here's the working definition of the goal: "Digital Earth will be a virtual representation of our planet that enables a person to explore and interact with the vast amounts of natural and cultural information gathered about the Earth."
The idea is to organize information of all kinds not by alphabetical order, but by geographic location. Instead of finding the right word, you would point to a place. The result is georeferenced data. A paper map is a commonplace example of georeferenced data. A more sophisticated one is a GIS or geographic information system, which allows data to be analyzed and displayed in maplike form. Digital Earth would be something bigger, what some are calling a geolibrary, and with the Internet it could be distributed widely on many different servers.
This concept of a distributed geolibrary is the subject of a book-length report by a special National Research Council panel. "A distributed geolibrary is a vision for the future," the report says. "It would integrate the resources of the Internet and the World Wide Web into a simple mechanism for searching and retrieving information relevant to a wide range of problems, including natural disasters, emergencies, community planning, and environmental quality."
Changes in the Program
Al Gore launched the Digital Earth program with a landmark speech on 31 January 1998, but it is currently extinct. It regrouped after Gore lost the 2000 presidential election, and "digitalearth.gov" froze until it went defunct in 2006. Now the core agency people work in the Federal Geographic Information Committee's working group on Geospatial Applications and Interoperability (GAI). The idea is to set standards that everyone can use to operate together. But I think Digital Earth is worth keeping as a name for the ultimate concept.
Geologists' Role
Geoscientists are at the forefront of this work. And librarians, our traditional stewards of data bases, are also deeply involved.
Cathryn Manduca, a researcher at Carleton College, names four ways that Digital Earth is relevant to geologists: "First, earth science courses and curricula at all levels are in the middle of a transformation to incorporate our understanding of the total earth system. Second, increased emphasis on science education for all undergraduate students requires the incorporation of more discovery and inquiry into college courses. Third, the emphasis on Earth and Space science at the K–12 level has increased in response to the National Science Standards. Finally, reliable, meaningful and relevant information about the Earth is increasingly important to journalists, policy planners and citizens."
Even without the official program, efforts have moved forward. A consortium of geologists started the OneGeology project in 2006, aiming to compile a dynamic world geologic map. Its prototype site was launched in early 2008 in preparation for the International Year of Planet Earth.
A similar effort is going on in the United States to unify the geologic data bases of the state and federal governments. Harvey Thorleifson, State Geologist of Minnesota, told an audience that the goal was "to fill the Google Earth sphere" from the surface down to the core. And three-dimensional geologic maps are beginning to burgeon around the world.
Pieces of Digital Earth
Many pieces of Digital Earth are already out there, the largest being products of Google like Google Earth and Google Maps. But try some of these other pieces:
Cracking Dams is online courseware for grades K–12, funded by the National Science Foundation, that makes engineering analysis fun and learnable.
GEOID (Geoscience Interactive Databases) is a Cornell University project that lets you mix and match geologic information for various regions.
Some might also list TerraServer, the Microsoft site that serves satellite images and aerial photography, mostly of the United States. I can zoom in on my house and see the landlord's car parked there. But it isn't really a Digital Earth site, because you can't do anything with the pictures except view them. That's the difference.
