Q & A: Global Geology and Topography

Question: 

My teachers are working on a geology project that they did last year with Texas and US geology maps. They had the students give real world examples of different landforms (volcanoes,  and where they existed in TX and the US. This year they are looking to expand it to world wide examples.

It's for fifth grade and the landforms they will be studying are: archipelagoes, caves, cliffs, deltas, deserts, dunes, islands, mountains, piedmonts, plains, plateaus, terraces, valleys and volcanoes.

Do you know of any resources students and teachers can use for this?

Answer: 

I like the Sketch-A-Map gadget at http://www.edgis.org/sketch for explorations.

and from my friend, Dr. Shannon White:

First thing that comes to mind is the National Atlas set of first 25 of the 100 topo maps about land forms – that is good for the US. http://www.nationalatlas.gov/100topos/index.html

Outside of the US – global datasets of terrain are  a bit more tough, I would suggest  checking out the following:

·         Center for International Earth Science Information Network data sets: http://www.ciesin.org/sub_guide.html

·         The data from the global 7-CD set  that is now 1 DVD that USGS put out with American Geological Institute are listed online at:

·         http://webgis.wr.usgs.gov/globalgis/datasets.htm

·         USGS Global Land cover might be helpful (might not) http://edc2.usgs.gov/glcc/glcc.php

·         The Landcover institute page might provide some resources: http://landcover.usgs.gov/

• The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Land Cover Data Directory
• Global Land Cover 2000
• GAP analysis program (land cover data by U.S. State)
• USGS Geographic Data Download (older LULC data)
• National Land Cover Dataset from USGS (seamless and the most current for the US)
• NLCD Class Definitions in html or EXCEL .dbf format