Introduction to ArcGIS Desktop for Mining Geoscience (10.0)

Geoscientists in the mining industry who need to perform GIS mapping and analysis should take this course in lieu of ArcGIS Desktop II: Tools and Functionality.

Prerequisites

A thorough understanding of mining terminology and business processes and a basic understanding of GIS concepts is required. Completion of ArcGIS Desktop I: Getting Started with ArcGIS or Getting Started with GIS is recommended.

• Understand how GIS is used for geoscience applications.
• Display and symbolize geoscience data layers on a map.
• Create presentation-quality geological maps and graphs.
• Use editing tools to create new features and assign feature attributes.
• Generate and view statistics for geoscience data.
• Perform GIS analyses to plan efficient mineral exploration activities.
• Build a geodatabase to store geological, geochemical, geophysical, and raster data.
• Develop a model that automates geoprocessing tasks used to locate prospective deposits.

Working with geologic, structural, and geophysical data in ArcGIS

• Adding and exploring data in ArcMap
• Accessing attribute data associated with map features

Symbolizing geoscience data

• Symbolizing geology, faults, foldaxes, and structural measurements
• Creating labels
• Saving layers

Combining a geophysical image with a geology map

• Exploring image display options and scales
• Clipping images
• Modifying transparency

Creating a geology map for plotting

• Working with a map template
• Adding legends, scale bars, north arrows, and other elements
• Exporting a map layout

Georeferencing images

• Preparing the map
• Adding control points
• Transforming images

Working with coordinate systems

• Assigning a coordinate system in ArcMap
• Assigning a coordinate system to a CAD file
• Using the Project tool to change a dataset's coordinate system
• Reprojecting a NAD27 dataset to NAD83

Visualizing geochemical data

• Using graduated colors and symbols
• Joining tables and merging datasets
• Classifying point data
• Determining anomalous samples

Working with ArcCatalog

• Exploring data and data documentation
• Searching for data
• Managing files

Building a file geodatabase

• Creating feature datasets and feature classes
• Adding raster data

Digitizing and editing in ArcMap

• Preparing the map for editing
• Digitizing geologic polygon features using a scanned map
• Moving and adding vertices
• Editing feature attributes
• Editing features that share boundaries
• Creating island polygons
• Referencing a photo as a feature attribute

Working with ArcGIS analysis tools

• Analyzing distance between gold occurrences and faults
• Calculating summary statistics for data
• Setting the geoprocessing environment
• Using spatial joins and attribute queries to assess data relationships
• Creating a scatter plot graph
• Defining gold targets using buffers and the Intersect tool

Automating spatial analysis using ModelBuilder

• Creating a new toolbox and a new model
• Adding geoprocessing tools to a model
• Defining model parameters
• Generating a report of the model inputs and results

Creating graphs

• Creating 3D column graphs, area graphs, and histograms
• Modifying graph properties

Working with metadata

• Why you need to document your data
• Viewing metadata in ArcCatalog
• Exporting metadata to an XML file
• Editing metadata

Esri will provide the following software to use during class:

• ArcGIS 10.0 for Desktop (ArcView, ArcEditor, or ArcInfo)