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The Mapping Grand Canyon Conference was an event held at Arizona State University's Tempe campus between February 28 and March 1, 2019. The conference marked an unprecedented exploration of the science, art, history, and practice of Grand Canyon cartography. It was a celebration and critical examination of the cartographic history of a global landscape icon.

Free and open to all, the conference delivered a two-day program of map-based story-telling, transdisciplinary analysis, state-of-the-art geospatial and cartographic demonstrations, engaging hands-on activities, and open community dialogue.

Inspiration and justification for convening such a conference was the confluence of two milestones in Grand Canyon history: (1) the centennial (1919-2019) of the legislation that led to Grand Canyon National Park, and (2) the sesquicentennial (1869-2019) of John Wesley Powell's famous first exploration and mapping survey through the canyons carved by the Colorado River, including the Grand Canyon.

The Mapping Grand Canyon Conference originated as a component of a larger research project supported through an ASU Institute for Humanities Research (IHR) seed grant -- Mapping Grand Canyon: A Critical Cartographic History.

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Footprints on the Sands of Time: Retracing Harvey Butchart's Exploration of the Grand Canyon through His Annotated Matthes-Evans Maps – Video Recording

Description
John Harvey Butchart was a mathematics professor at Northern Arizona University from 1945 to 1973. From 1945 to 1987, he spent considerable time in the Grand Canyon, hiking established trails, exploring obscure routes, and discovering new routes. In all, Dr. Butchart spent over 1,000 days in the Grand Canyon and…

John Harvey Butchart was a mathematics professor at Northern Arizona University from 1945 to 1973. From 1945 to 1987, he spent considerable time in the Grand Canyon, hiking established trails, exploring obscure routes, and discovering new routes. In all, Dr. Butchart spent over 1,000 days in the Grand Canyon and traveled over 12,000 miles in the Canyon. Dr. Butchart kept journals on his explorations and complemented those notes with a heavily annotated copy of the 1927 Francois Matthes and Richard Evans East Half, West Half topographic maps of the Grand Canyon. Embedded in Butchart’s annotated Matthes-Evans maps are compelling stories of adventure, discovery, triumph, and heartbreak. This presentation will highlight selections of those stories and the impact this map has had on subsequent hiking exploration in the Canyon.
ContributorsRunge, Peter (Author, Speaker) / ASU Marketing Hub (Videographer)
Created2019-02-28
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Conference Program

DescriptionOfficial program of the Mapping Grand Canyon Conference. Document was designed and optimized for digital dissemination and mobile device (smartphone, tablet) viewing and interactive browsing. Document was deliberately not printed in paper format with the intent of minimizing the event's ecological footprint through a reduction of paper and ink waste.
ContributorsWatson, Amy Carolyn (Compiler, Designer) / Toro, Matthew (Compiler, Cartographer) / Avila, Theresa (Contributor) / Field, Kenneth (Contributor) / Fry, Michael (Contributor) / Griffin, Dori (Contributor) / Kaplinski, Matt (Contributor) / Karlstrom, Karl (Contributor) / Manone, Mark (Contributor) / Oetting, Ed (Contributor) / Patterson, Tom (Contributor) / Quartaroli, Richard David (Contributor) / Runge, Peter (Contributor) / Semken, Steve (Contributor) / Smilovsky, Nikolas (Contributor) / Smith, Stephanie (Contributor) / Spindler, Rob (Contributor) / Trapido-Lurie, Barbara (Contributor) / Upchurch, Jonathan (Contributor) / Deitrick, Stephanie (Contributor) / Lemar, Shea (Contributor) / Messinger, Ellen Murray (Contributor) / Sherwood, Jill (Contributor) / Wilhelm, Karina (Contributor)
Created2019-02
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Geologic Mapping of Grand Canyon, 150 Years and Counting – Video Recording

Description
Geologic maps are to geologists what equations are to mathematicians; they symbolically and compactly encode many layers of hard-won scientific knowledge for those who know how to read them. The best ones also are beautiful. There have been great challenges and great progress in geologic mapping of Grand Canyon over…

Geologic maps are to geologists what equations are to mathematicians; they symbolically and compactly encode many layers of hard-won scientific knowledge for those who know how to read them. The best ones also are beautiful. There have been great challenges and great progress in geologic mapping of Grand Canyon over the past 150 years. Dutton era (1886) maps represent major advances in cartography and geology. The Huntoon et al., (1996) 1:62,500 “Dragon Map” of Eastern Grand Canyon is the best-selling geologic map of all time; it was produced by offset printing and is now out of print. The Timmons and Karlstrom (2012) Geologic Map of Eastern Grand Canyon at 1:24,000 is the most detailed available for large areas; it has been digitized and is being converted to GIS files. The Billingsley’s USGS maps of the entire Grand Canyon region are available at 1:100,000 as GIS files online. Next challenges are to incorporate multiple scales in Google Earth-style zooming in interactive 3-D geologic portrayals. This requires higher detail boots-on-the-ground geologic mapping than is currently available in many areas as well as innovative ideas for 3-D visualizations. Imagery and visualization technologies are available such that this “Grand Challenge” is within reach.
ContributorsKarlstrom, Karl E (Author, Speaker) / ASU Marketing Hub (Videographer)
Created2019-02-28