Introducing Geotripper Images: Finding Geology-Themed Digital Images on the Internet

It is just three weeks to the fifth anniversary of Geotripper (that's upper Paleozoic in Internet time). As I noted in my first blog entry, I've taken a lot of digital images and I wanted to use the blog as a way of using the pictures to educate interested people in the earth sciences. I can't believe I've written 1,100 posts, but it has been a heck of a lot of fun, and I've come to know some great people in the blog community as a result. 

As the blogs accumulated in number, I realized that although people might find the pictures useful (for school reports or research illustrations and the like), there was no good way to track them down in an organized fashion. So I got the idea of doing a separate website where my best geology pictures could be organized by subject matter or location. So, in 2010 or so I bought a domain name (geotripperimages.com; somehow geotripper.com was already taken), and immediately realized I was overmatched. I can follow a template like blogger, but faced with html and utter cluelessness about web publishing, things languished. Finally, I cobbled something together and produced an earth-science based digital image site. It is still incomplete (especially in the rivers, deserts and karst areas), but there are something over 1,000 images posted so far, and the hopefully the navigation of the site is simple enough to follow.
So I welcome you to take a look at Geotripperimages.com. So far, I have extensive sections on Volcanism, Tectonic Processes, Erosional Processes, Earth Materials, and Living Things (because every picture site should have furry or scaley animals).  The site is meant for free use by students, teachers and non-profits (see the Image Use Guidelines here). If there are authors or publishers who wish to use images in texts or other for-profit publications, we are happy to make them available at a very modest fee, royalty free. You can click on any of the pictures for a fuller view, and most are available at much higher resolution (contact us for more information).

Since the pictures are the work of myself and Mrs. Geotripper, there are plenty of the places in the world we haven't visited yet, so you might not always find what you are looking for. With that in mind, I've added a new sidebar to Geotripper called Geology and Earth Science Images. I've found seven really handy sites for collecting geology photos. I would be really happy to add some more, if you happen to host a site for such things (I'm mostly interested in sites that are mainly educational in nature). Here the sites (I can add others if you let me know if their existence):

• Allen Glazner's Geology Image Gallery (University of North Carolina)
Allan is co-author of some great "Geology Underfoot..." guides.

• Andrew Alden's About.com Landform Picture Index
Andrew Alden has been blogging about geology for longer than just about everybody, and is still going strong at http://geology.about.com//. He has put together a fine gallery of images.
• British Geological Survey Geoscenic National Archive of Geological Photographs
• Earth Science World Image Bank-AGI
Many geologists have contributed photographs to this excellent image bank (6,000+ photos).
• Geology Photos: Marli Bryant Miller
Marli co-wrote an excellent field guide to the geology of Death Valley, and has some excellent imagery at this site, including some spectacular aerial photography.
• Imaging Earth's Surface - University of Vermont
A site devoted to geomorphology images (including around 50 of Geotripper's pictures).
• NOAA Natural Hazards Image Database
• U.S. Geological Survey Photographic Library
A good place to find some of the most classic geology photos ever taken.

Happy searching!