Annual Report 2006
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Databanks and information |
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Towards a national database with
increased access
As a step in the municipal structural reform, it was agreed that in future GEUS' Jupiter database is to be a common public database of data on drillings, groundwater and drinking water. In future, environment employees in municipalities, regions and environment centres will be working online with data in Jupiter. During 2006, in close collaboration with the counties, GEUS carried out extensive work to harmonise and convert data from all county databases to Jupiter, so that data in the future will be available from a single source and in a uniform format. The data in ques - tion include geological data from drillings, and data on groundwater resources and water chemistry, which the new authorities and environment centres will need in their management of the environment, groundwater, drinking water and mineral resources. Several new types of data from the counties have been entered in the Jupiter database during the course of the year. This is e.g. sample data from pumping tests for selected aquifers, as well as sedimentary-chemical analyses, age determination of groundwater and printed drilling reports, which are scanned into the database. GEUS has also worked to increase the availability of data in Jupiter. A new format for data extraction has been developed covering nearly the entire data content in Jupiter, and extractions from the database were made free of charge from 2006. Further - more, a new interface has been developed for the Jupiter database consisting of a number of so-called web services for data extraction and updating. The purpose of these changes is, amongst other things, to make it possible for groundwater systems such as Rambøll's GeoGIS, Geokon's GeoEnviron, and KMD's Struktura to function online with the database. Finally in 2006, GEUS continued training well drillers in digital reporting of drilling data to Jupiter. This work is progressing satisfactorily and more than 60 percent of data from water supply wells are now reported digitally. |
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Storage of important
continental shelf data
The Continental Shelf Project got going for real after Denmark ratified the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea in 2004. The project is collecting data about seabed depth and geology in order to be able to document Denmark's possible claims to an expansion of the relevant continental shelf areas beyond the 200 nautical mile limit in the waters around the Faeroe Islands and Greenland. Access to possible underground and seabed resources is at stake, and since 2003, data have been pouring in from surveys of the five potential areas offshore the Faeroe Islands and Greenland for which claims may be made. The large quantities of different and very complex geodata, which have been collected during expensive ship and field expeditions, require careful storing and systematisation. In 2006, GEUS continued its work to construct a database for the Continental Shelf Project, including GIS features and other auxiliary systems. This database is an important tool for the project and will play a significant role for documentation efforts to support possible claims for expansion of Denmark's continental shelf. The work is progressing as expected and the database is now able to manage e.g. geodetic, bathymetric, seismic, gravimetric and magnetic data. |
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New book
about Greenland's minerals
'En verden af mineraler i Grønland' (a world of minerals in Greenland) is the title of a new popularscience book from GEUS, which came out in 2006. This book is a presentation of Greenland's singular wealth of minerals illustrated with almost 200 colour pictures and containing descriptions of history, systematic and place of discovery. A total of 32 minerals are described in detail along with 30 topics and stories about Greenland's minerals and their significance for modern Greenland. The book is aimed at people with an interest in the mineral resources of Greenland, the building blocks of na - ture, and in how we exploit the Earth. Moreover, there is inspiration for teachers of geography and earth sciences. 'En verden af mineraler i Grønland' was well-received by critics. The Greenlandic newspaper 'Grønlandsposten' said in its review: “How pleasing to read about the different stones described in the book without having to make an effort to understand the text; the minerals have been popularised very successfully.” The book has been published in Danish only. |
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Focus on increasing
the intake of geology students
The intake of geology students at Danish universities has slowed down noticeably over recent years. At the same time, society increasingly needs geologists to solve environmental tasks and tasks in the water sector and in the oil and mineral resources industry. During 2006, GEUS participated in a number of mea s - ures aimed at upper secondary schools to boost the intake of students at university. In collaboration with the other parties in Geocenter Copenhagen, during the course of the year, new ex perimental teaching materials were developed (GeoCase), for teaching natural sciences at upper secondary school level. Further more, a total of four editions of the easy-to-read popularscience magazine Geoviden (Geo Science) were published during the year. The magazine is being read by an ever greater number of teachers and students at Danish upper secondary schools. The schools now also have increased access to teaching material via the GEUS website, where a new section containing easily acces - sible knowledge on earthquakes was launched in collaboration with the Danish National Space Center. Finally, geologists from GEUS participated in 'Mini Science Camp 2006', where school students visited the Department of Geography and Geology at the University of Copenhagen. GEUS is also offering several courses with further training for upper secondary school teachers in collaboration with the Association of Geography Teachers and other Danish geo-professional associations. |
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Expansion of a nationwide
geophysics database
The nationwide geophysics database for the environment and mineral resource area, GERDA, is under continued development. The GERDA database contains different geophysical data, mainly from mapping by counties of areas of special drinking water inte r - est, as well as GEUS' water supply well logging. Data include geoelectric and electromagnetic data such as TEM data and logs, older Wenner and Schlumberger geoelectric data, PACES and MEP data. Both measurement data and interpretations are stored as geophysical models, and at present there are about 180,000 models in the database. The GERDA database plays an important role in the management of water resources and mineral resources, and it will continue to be an important tool and library for future fee-financed groundwater mapping by the environment centres in future. During 2006, the database was developed fur - ther, so that, now, it also handles SkyTEM data collected by helicopter, and the features for managing log data have moreover been improved. GERDA was developed in close cooperation with the University of Aarhus, Aarhus County, the Danish Forest and Nature Agency, and consultancies. |
