U.S. Geographic Survey
The U.S. Department of the Interior has made a number of different kinds
of information from the U.S. Geological Survey available through the WWW.
The U.S. Geographic Survey Page contains current information about
current geological events, current events within USGS, and recently available
sources of Geographic information. This page also contains links
to a number of sites within the USGS system. This page is easily
accessible and is intended to be browsed by the public.
The Geographic Names Information System, developed by the U.S. Geographic
Survey and the U.S. Board on Geographic Names is a database of places and
features that are identified by proper names. The WWW page provides
the user with the ability to search
the database for a feature or place. This feature is easy to
use and seems suited to the casual browser. In addition, this page
contains a link to a site
from which various datasets can be downloaded. Downloading and using
the datasets would, of course, require one to have a better understanding
of how the datasets were structured. This site is useful for locating
a geographic feature by name.
This site provides the user with the ability to search a large number
of data sets from various sources including Landsat, Space Shuttle photography,
and conventional aerial photography. The interface to this search
interface is rather cryptic though and most of the resources are not available
online; instead, once located, they must be ordered from GLIS. As
such, this site seems geared more towards the professional than the casual
browser.
This sites contains both online educational resources, such as "Volcanoes
in The Learning Web," as well as classroom materials which may be ordered.
This site is clearly geared toward teachers and there students, but is
easily accessible to anyone.