Last month, another structural geologist came to town to check out possible sites for a future field class. While we were out looking at one of my favorite teaching sites, he commented that geologists seem unusually willing to share their secrets with one another. (We had met at one of the Cutting Edge workshops, where great teaching ideas are free for the taking, technically unpublished but shared online and in person.)

A few weeks ago, I learned about another example: Outcropedia, a project of the International Union of Geosciences’ TekTask group. From the organizers’ e-mail:

The Outcropedia aims to be a collection of the most spectacular and interesting geological structures on Earth, illustrated with photos, and accessible in Google Earth to all geologists, after registering on the TecTask site (100% free).

The Outcropedia goals are:

• to provide material for new field courses and excursions;
• to raise community’s awareness of sites of geological significance and interest.

Would you like to contribute to the project with your favourite outcrops?

You can add single outcrops, field excursions or field work related facilities. You can cooperate by:

• inserting the locations directly as Google Earth .kml files or
• sending us the coordinates by mail: we’re happy to do it for you if you include a short description and a photograph (or permission to use the photograph published on the internet).

If you’re interested, contact the official e-mail (outcropedia AT googlemail DOT com), or one of the organizers – Cees Passchier (University of Mainz) or Anna Chanou (University of Athens).

If enough people participate, maybe we’ll all be able to plan our own field courses to New Zealand, or Greece, or the Canadian Rockies, even if we don’t have personal connections in those places. Wouldn’t that be cool?