Fieldwork education and the use of Virtual Geological Tours

South Africa hosts a great many geohistorical sites such as the Vredefort Dome impact structure¹, greenstones and stromatolites of the Barberton Mountains², turbidity sequences of the Tanqua Karoo³, and the Sea Point Contact (visited by Charles Darwin in 1836)⁴. Together they preserve the history of continents and the evolution of life (e.g. the “Cradle of Humankind” in the Sterkfontein Caves)¹. Therefore, South Africa is a geotourism and geo-educational hotspot. However, construction, vandalism, sea-level rise and land-use changes threaten many important outcrops, both in South Africa and worldwide⁵.

To address this, several platforms and initiatives such as Geodyssey (SA)⁶, iGeology (UK), European Geoparks Network (Europe), and GeoTourist (worldwide) have been developed to document specific outcrops for preservation, geotourism, and/or educational purposes. Our team at the University of the Western Cape has used this framework to develop virtual geological tours (VTs) of key Cape Granite, Cape, and Karoo Supergroup outcrops to: 1) add visual material to Geodyssey; 2) create Google Earth-hosted geotourism-focused tours; and 3) build longer, more comprehensive VTs with high resolution imagery, narrated video-links, 3D scans, and scientific references to allow professionals to visually access sites and to prepare students for in-person field trips. The educational efficacy of the latter has been proven with statistical analyses that show significant positive impacts that increase with target population education levels⁷.

Thus far, we have built easily navigable, interactive VTs using a Canon R5 camera (with various lenses and a Syrp Genie II Pan Tilt mechanical camera head), Canon XA 40 camcorder, Insta 360 X-one camera, DJI Mavic 3 Pro Cine drone and an Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max in combination with purchased software packages such as PTGui^©, Agisoft Metashape^© and Pano2VR^© along with freeware/hosting platforms including 3D Scanner (LiDAR), Handbrake, Blender, CapCut, Microsoft Clipchamp, YouTube, Sketchfab, and the web-based version of Google Earth. Although we have used the above expensive equipment and licensed software, freeware such as HitFilm Free, HugIn and Marzipano are available, which may achieve compatible results.

In conclusion, our latest results demonstrate that anyone can create VTs with a good mobile phone with LiDAR capability and a high resolution camera (45 megapixel or more) such as an Apple iPhone 15 or 16 pro, without having to lug heavy backpacks with bulky and expensive camera equipment into the field as we will demonstrate by showing some results.

 

References:

1) Allen, N. et al. (2022). https://doi.org/10.1029/2022JE007186

2) Tice, M.M. et al. (2004). https://doi.org/10.1130/G19915.1

3) Wickens, H.D., Bouma, A.H. (2000). https://archives.datapages.com/data/specpubs/memoir72/ch14/mem72ch14.htm

4) Bailie, R.H. et al. (2024). https://doi.org/10.1144/SP543-2022-237

5) Helm, C.W. et al. (2024). https://koedoe.co.za/index.php/koedoe/article/view/1786/3381

6) Geological Society of South Africa (2024). https://www.gssawc.org.za/geodyssey

7) Van Bever Donker, J.M. et al. (2024). https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-18133