Recently, three colleges converged in western Nevada for four days of field paleontology. Over thirty students participated in a series of field tasks that represented different kinds of field scientific work. The tasks ranged from classic description to modern collection techniques. For the latter, the students mapped a trilobite-rich area using a Nomad computer and SX Blue II sub-meter GPS from Walcott Scientific.

Students found the gear not too cumbersome to wear and use in the field.

Trilobites are extinct arthropods, related to modern insects, crabs, and lobsters. In the Cambrian period, about 500 million years ago, they ruled the seas. Deep water deposits of that age are rich in trilobite fossils. The field exercise was carried out in Esmeralda County, Nevada in glorious weather. The students divided into teams of four members and each team had a guide to the common trilobites. Then, they students scurried about the hills looking for fossil-rich zones. When they found a particularly rich area, the students logged their location with an SX Blue II sub-meter GPS that communicated to a TDS Nomad via Bluetooth.

Nevadia weeksi, common trilobite in the lower field area.

Data was collected as a point-based shape file in ArcPad, set against a topographic map downloaded from a state of Nevada GIS website. In addition to the location information, the students listed the dominant fossil genus and estimated the age. Both the Nomad and GPS worked without a hitch and there was plenty of battery life at the end of the project.

Back at the college, the data was transferred to MapWindow GIS and sent via Shape2Earth to GoogleEarth as a .kml file. This process took less then five minutes. Each student was then e-mailed the .kml file so they could see for themselves just how the fossil bugs were distributed in the field area.

This assignment, and similar ones I have done with my courses, really shows the students both how easy it is to collect data in the field, and how GIS adds value to a project. The Nomad proved an excellent tool in the Nevada desert with the bright screen and rugged design. While many researchers still use tablets and PCs in the field, the use of small PDA data collectors is more efficient on cost, weight, and battery life.

As I have written in a previous blog, I am not very pleased with the integrated GPS on the new Toughbooks. However, the Bluetooth is very stable and opens up a variety of GPS options. The following goes through the steps of setting up an external GPS on a Toughbook 19 running Windows XP Tablet. Other models should be similar; Vista has not been tested.

1) Turn on the GPS. As always, make sure the battery is charged!

2) On the Toughbook, open the SD card slot and flip on the Wireless toggle switch, Then, click on the Bluetooth logo on the bottom bar. A box will appear. Click “New Connection”. Here is an important step: use “Custom Mode” or else the computer will assign a COM port that may not work with some software! Click “Next.”

3) The computer will recognize the GPS. Highlight the name and click “Next.”

4) The computer will assign the GPS to a serial port. Click “Next.”

5) On the next screen, uncheck “Use default COM port.” Now, you can choose your own COM port. Many software packages only go up to COM 9 for GPS, so I recommend choosing COM 8 and “Auto Connect.” Click “Next.”

6) On the next screen you can select an icon if you wish. Click “Next” and you are done! The COM port you have chosen will be the same for all software you use. This also means that you cannot run two different software programs at the same time.

To save battery life in the field, you can turn off the WiFi while you are running Bluetooth. In the lower right corner of the bottom tool bar is an icon of a lightning bolt with a circle. Click it to bring up wireless options. Choose Wireless LAN OFF and Bluetooth ON. The 802.11a doesn’t matter.

This week, I have been visiting the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in San Francisco. This meeting, held each fall, showcases the latest in research on the Earth and space and the exhibit hall boasts lots of new technology. I had a great time speaking with folks at the NASA booth, visiting with booksellers, and chatting with the Google Earth crew. However, this year’s grooviest field device is a ruggedized rock and mineral analyzer from inXitu, Inc.

Image courtesy of the inXitu website. Note icy cold research ship in background! Where are the penguins?
Known as an XRD, this hefty box takes a powdered rock sample and bombards it with x-rays to produce a diffraction pattern. As we learned in Intro Geology, each mineral has a unique arrangement of atoms so each mineral will produce a unique diffraction pattern, like a fingerprint. Normally, you collect a sample in the field, bring it back to the lab, crush it to a fine powder, then put it in a large, humming box. The “TERRA” allows you to do this in the field as it comes with a handy metal mortar and screen. Simply crush a piece of the sample, put the powder in the sample holder, place it in the box, and in a very short time (~30 seconds in the demonstration I saw), a diffraction pattern is produced. As long as you have a database of known minerals (available from a variety of sources), identification is instantaneous.As this blog is about rugged field computers, I’ll mention this XRD amazingly has no moving parts so is field ready. It comes in a ‘Antarctic-orange’ rugged case and can operate from -10 to 40 degrees C. Slightly bulky, but not unmanageable. The battery claims 4 hours of field use and is hot-swappable. You don’t need a computer to run the XRD, but you can communicate via WiFi (802.11g) to control the start and stop, download data, and search stored data.

The suggested price is $64,500. Not cheap, but a reasonable price compared to lab-based units. If you were involved in a project where on-site mineralogic data is critical for saving time in planning the next day’s (or hour’s) investigation, you would quickly make up the cost. I anticipate that we will hear about use of these units from the major research schools, particularly the hot economic geology schools. U. M. Duluth grads, pool your money and donate one of these gems!

For more information, contact inXitu, Inc. My congratulations for the coolest field tool at AGU!