Alright, alright, alright. While many of us are patiently waiting for the long weekend to begin, we thought it would be nice to give you a little reading material to help you relax and push off your workload by just a few more days. It's okay. We promise not to tell!
The world’s oceans are vital to life, providing food, moderating climate, and offering us endless vacation opportunities. Despite their vitality, they are not mapped to the level of detail we have come to know for our life on land.
There are many reasons for this – everything from requiring specialized equipment, skilled expertise, and risks of disturbing the ecosystems that lie in its depths.
Over the last few years, the Geographic Information System (GIS) and science worlds have seen an uptick in the efforts made and resources produced for this valuable body thanks to organizations like NOAA, USGS, and Esri. This article talks about those efforts in mapping marine ecosystems, detailing process and resources you can check out from the comfort of your dry office.
The Permian Basin, located in West Texas, has seen many technological improvements this year that have ultimately resulted in better efficiency for drilling. This article talks about those changes as well as the benefits that come along with them.
Can we just talk for a second about the fun ways Tableau interacts with its customers and consumers? If you have been anywhere near their community or follow a Tableau Ambassador (or two) on social media, you will know they are constantly engaging others with campaigns like #MakeoverMonday and #IronViz where consumers voluntarily visualize data provided to them as a way of showcasing their skills and building their #dataviz repertoire. This post is another example of a fun ploy at increasing engagement, offering you a trip down the data visualization river in a boat of your choice. (Okay, there are no actual boats, but you catch my drift.)
We have covered a few articles about mapping seemingly unusual things…or at least, “things” we would not typically associate with mapping practices. (Remember that Smellscape post? Phew!) This article falls into a similar category, enlightening us on objects and phenomena that are mapped even if we do not realize it. This “thing”? Sea ice. Often used as a geographic reference for political boundaries when negotiating shipping routes or drilling locations, sea ice has a habit of moving…or even just decreasing. This makes nailing down geographic locations tricky, both a practice and philosophy the author seeks to educate us on.
In modern times, maps are so readily available to us that we often don’t bat an eye when faced with an unfamiliar path. Traveling abroad? Take to Google to find the best site-seeing, find the route from your stay to those locations...all before even leaving for your trip. With this convenience, we may not often think of the pioneers who have come before us to pave the way for this knowledge. It pays to know the history of your industry – and often, that history is rich with details you could never imagine. This article dives into one example of this, talking about the Indian “pundits” who mapped much of South Asia on foot to relay back to the British. Instead of survey equipment, these spies used mala beads and prayer wheels to create detailed logs of distances traveled and lands encountered.
Map of the Day - The Reaching Arms of Prussia
This week’s #MapOfTheDay comes to us in the form of World War I propaganda. A French propaganda poster from 1917, this map depicts the growth of German and Prussian armies over two centuries as well as their potential reach as shown by sprawling tentacles. The ominous octopus is a key feature in propaganda maps due to its symbolization of grasping, overreach, and menace. It is important to note that those maps that often use this element are shooting for “persuasion” rather than “education”. They do not seek to communicate objective geographic information, but instead deal in the influencing of opinion.
#DailyBrainCandiii and #WeekliiiRoundUp are inspired by brain candiii, a division of Integrated Informatics that develops Geographic Information System (GIS) training for Energy and Natural Resources professionals.
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