Lake Superior Crust

I came across an article in Geological Society of American, Memoir 156 (1982) published by Henry Halls on the thickness of the crust in the Lake Superior region. In the article, crustal thicknesses (apparent) at various locations in and around Lake Superior had been compiled from a variety of seismic data sources (primarily Project Early Rise and the Lake Superior Experiment). The data indicated a significant thickening of the earth's crust under and around Lake Superior.

Later seismic work done under the GLIMPCE Project provided additional information on the crustal thickness and layering in the upper portion of the crust which reflected the presence of the volcanic flows and sediments (Keweenawan Group). This work has not yet been incorporated into the 3D model.

Using recently developed 3D visualization software, I undertook to convert the information provided by Halls (1982) into a digital format and then digitally rendered it in three dimensions using MapInfo / Discover 3D software. An image was constructed using MapInfo Discover's Surface Module based on 124 data points which represent the thickness of the crust in meters. The image was then transferred as a surface to Discover 3D along with vectors representing the Great Lakes and the Ontario Provincial boundaries.

A Fly-Thru video was constructed using Google Earth Pro for the 3D earth images. A fly-thru for the 3D image of the crust was constructed using Discover 3D and saved as a video file. Video files were then joined together using Windows Movie Maker with video transitions and a narration and saved as the final video file. The final uploaded video is lower resolution than the original due to the additional compression used on the Google web site.

Link to 3D View