This project was undertaken to fulfill two courses, Geology 2350 (Field Studies) and Geography 1800 (Mapping Our World). If you would like to see the project in its entirety please click on the Field Studies link on the previous page.
The beginning of this project involved finding a place within Utah that could be a source of pollution, form a hypothesis, then collect soil samples to test my hypothesis. The project culminated in a scientific paper and poster which included this map. This project took most of the semester. This map has been worked on since about mid-November through mid-December. I ultimately decided to determine whether airborne coal ash from the Huntington power plant in Huntington Canyon was contaminating the soil in and around the canyon.
In order to create this map I first needed all of my soil samples tested using an x-ray florescence (XRF) device that detects heavy metals in soils. Once I had tested all of my soil samples I imported the information into an Excel spreadsheet. Once I had everything in Excel I had to format the excel spreadsheet to make it compatible with ArcMap. This was pretty involved and included a lot of trial and error and help of our GIS tutors Steve and Mitch to finally find all the formatting issues and get them corrected.
Once my Excel spreadsheet was correctly formatted I was able to import it into ArcCatalog and create a file geodatabase. From there it was (mostly) a straightforward process of finding the basemaps I wanted to use and creating my layer symbology for cadmium and antimony. I did a lot of trial and error in this part of the process to determine what symbology I preferred. I originally wanted to create a single map with pie chart symbology that would show the levels of any heavy metals found at each location. I was unable, in the end, to figure out how to create this type of symbology. The pie charts I tried were not accurate in their representation of my heavy metal counts and misrepresented my map. I ultimately decided upon graduated colors and manually changed the symbol sizes to even better represent my findings.
I then created a new layer as my zoomed-in inlay to better show the cadmium concentrations and their location to the power plant's research farm. I felt like this method was a good way to show the reader of my report and map what those readings could mean.
Finally I experimented in the software to create my title, legend, and look of my inlaid layer. What you see above is the final product.
I found the initial beginning of creating this map the most difficult. I think the importing of the Excel spreadsheet and correcting points that were incorrectly located took longer than actually setting up my symbology and labels and finishing my map. However, in the future, I know what to do and I should be able to get through this process much more quickly. I am a little shocked that such a robust program is unable to import Excel documents that contain spaces between any words or numbers.
In the course of this project I realized that I've barely scratched the surface of this software. I still have a lot to learn as there are so many features I can use to create maps with it, and so many different ways to access those features. I fully intend on keeping the book I purchased for this class as reference material for future projects.
Ultimately, I believe, for a first time student of GIS mapping, I created a good map. It came out a little better than I expected. I expect as I continue in my education which includes getting my GIS certificate that my maps will become better and more robust and that I will be able to utilize most if not all the features ArcMap offers proficiently.
