Geologic Website of the Month
National Park Service - Geology
www.nature.nps.gov/geology/
Michael F. Forlenza, P.G.
HGS Bulletin Editor
Most geologists are great fans our National Parks. There are few places in the world where the geologic features are more spectacular than the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Bryce Canyon, Mount Rainier, and many other special places protected in our national park system.
The world’s first national park was established on March 1, 1872 when an act of Congress designated Yellowstone National Park in the Territories of Montana and Wyoming "as a public park or pleasuring-ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people" and placed it "under exclusive control of the Secretary of the Interior." The founding of Yellowstone National Park began a worldwide national park movement. Today more than 100 nations contain some 1,200 national parks or equivalent preserves.
On August 25, 1916, President Woodrow Wilson signed the act creating the National Park Service, a new federal bureau in the Department of the Interior. An Executive Order in 1933 transferred 56 national monuments and military sites from the Forest Service and the War Department to the National Park Service. This action was a major step in the development of today’s comprehensive national system of parks—a system that includes areas, monuments, and sites of historical, as well as scenic and scientific, importance.
The National Park Service still strives to meet its original goals, while fulfilling its many other roles. These roles include: guardian of our diverse cultural and recreational resources; environmental advocate; world leader in the parks and preservation community; and pioneer in the drive to protect America’s open space. According their mission statement:
The National Park Service preserves unimpaired the natural and cultural resources and values of the national park system for the enjoyment, education, and inspiration of this and future generations. The Park Service cooperates with partners to extend the benefits of natural and cultural resource conservation and outdoor recreation throughout this country and the world.
The National Park system is vast and now comprises 390 areas covering more than 84 million acres (3.6 percent of the total United States) in 49 States, the District of Columbia, and territories. The assets of the Nation Park Service are extensive and include: 27,000 buildings and structures; 776 campgrounds, 8,505 monuments and statues; 505 dams, 24 national battlefields; 10 national seashores; 8,500 miles of paved roads, and 1,804 bridges. But it is primarily the scenic beauty and the chance to be closer to nature that draws the more than 270 million visitors to the parks each year.
The homepage the National Park Service (www.nps.gov/) is designed to serve the broad needs of the general public that is looking for information and planning visits to the parks. Along the left side of the NPS homepage are clickable categories that include one for Nature & Science. On the left side of the Nature & Science webpage there are clickable categories that include one for Geology (www.nature.nps.gov/geology/).
The geology page has the same basic layout as the National Park Service homepage with a black logo bar at the top, small inset photographs, and lists of links. The muted color palate of brown, tan, ochre, sage, and black is familiar to park visitors as is the arrowhead logo located in the upper right. I am always glad to see the National Park Service logo; to me, sighting the stylized bison and sequoia means that I am on the way to someplace special.
The geology webpage has several photographs and a newspaper look with headlines and snippets of topics and items as lead-ins to continuing pages. Along the left side is an index of 16 clickable links under the heading Explore Geology. Clicking one these categories opens a subject-specific geologic webpage. Some of these site-specific webpages are full of useful and interesting geologic information. Others are more spare and outdated. Based on the information in the footers, some of these webpages have not been updated in more than five years.
The Caves & Karst webpage is particularly well done with many wonderful photographs and plenty of pertinent geologic information. This webpage also provides links to many caving organizations throughout the United States.
There is not much of interest on some of the topic-specific geology webpages such as Paleontology or Minerals until you drill down through several links to reach the webpages that are specific to certain National Parks. However, drilling down through the trail of links does not always yield satisfying geologic nuggets. In some cases, the trail ends at the Code of Federal Regulations (www.nature.nps.gov/geology/oil_and_gas/9b_text.htm) or the 2001 National Park Service Management Policies (www.nps.gov/refdesk/mp/chapter8.htm).
The Park Geology Tour link on the geology webpage opens a page with some historic photographs and a series of topical logos that are cross-indexed to the parks. Clicking on the Basin and Range logo opens a page that provides a brief description of that characteristic topography and the origins of this landscape. Links to six national parks or monuments where basin and range features can be observed are also provided.
Perhaps the most interesting area of the website is by click the link from the geology webpage labeled Student & Teachers. The teacher’s resources and lesson plans available on the Students & Teachers page are wide ranging and entertaining. This is an area of good browsing. The Geologic Glossary here is extensive and provides through descriptions of terms. Do not miss the geology of hydrocarbons teaching animations illustrating salt dome formation, horizontal drilling, and discovery of an oil field (www.nature.nps.gov/geology/usgsnps/oilgas/oilgas.html).
The geology webpage on the National Park Service website an interesting refresher on the wonders in our parks with some good areas for browsing. However, the organization of the website seems patched together and is frustrating. Promising trails of links fail to lead to the an