The Third Dimension: A Geoscience Challenge for the 21st Century

Geologists working in mountainous terrain were the first to map and interpret in three dimensions and as a result, made the first contributions to our understanding of mountain building and structural geology. However, geology during the 1900s has been dominantly a two-dimensional exercise in data gathering and interpretation. The standard output of geological surveys and university research has been the geological map and the standard methodology of the mineral explorer has been surface mapping and prospecting. The future will be concerned far more with the third dimension.