Wyzwania kartografii geologicznej w Polsce

Abstract

Challenges of geological mapping in Poland.A b s t r a c t. Geological mapping is a highly interpretive and scientific process that produces a range of map products for many different uses, basically for sustainable land and mineral resources management. This is a primary and principal task of all geological surveys in the world. The establishment of the Polish Geological Institute in 1919 founded a basic framework for geological mapping in Poland. After the SecondWorldWar, an extensive production of geological (serial, regional and thematic) maps at different scales in atlases and scientific publications was initiated. Within the past 30 years, geographic information system (GIS) technology has begun to change geologic mapping by providing software tools, a use of which permits geological data to be electronically stored, displayed, queried and analysed in conjunction with a seemingly infinite variety of other data types. The fully automatic process of map generalization and its founding on hierarchic geological vocabularies will enable flexible presentation of geological data while passing from one scale to another. New technological advances and international standards in description, collection, exchange and visualisation of geological data, as well as its connection with external resources, will result in substantial enrichment of information in databases and will create new possibilities in search and use of data in the Web.