West Virginia Coal Mine Explosion: Mine Maps Offer Challenges to Average Reader

The New York Times published both a 2D map and 3D topographic perspective map of the coal mine disaster in Montcoal, West Virginia where 25 miners were killed. Maps should provide some context and while the Times does a good job of showing the basic location of the disaster, they ignored a few cartographic principals. First, the 2D map has an inset map to give the reader the general location of the disaster. Unfortunately, the boundary shown in the inset map does not match the boundary of the mine area on the 2D map itself so it's hard to correlate the two maps. Second, the 3D map shows the topography and a satellite image overlay depicting the surface of the mine as well as a map of the subsurface mine layout. However, the mine layout boundary should be projected onto the 3D topographic map so that the reader understands the surface extents.

Over on USA Today, their map is solely to locate the mine with a "pin." They do not offer supporting maps of the subsurface area although they do have diagrams of how coal is mined at this particular mine.

Depicting the subsurface for the average reader is difficult because of the need to project the layout in 2D and no reference point exists whereby you can relate it to anything on the surface. The subsurface has just as much topographic relief as the surface but we're not used to understanding underground topography as anyone who's ever been in a cave can attest.

Comments

Unknown said…
I found very useful article on your post, I think you have great collection, That's is the reason your contents of every post very unique and easily understandable. I think the interesting thing this time around will be what each publication has learned since the 2008 elections in using technology to display information geospatially. Flash technology was certainly preferred last time. Mobile Watch Phone I would like you Thanks for it. Keep it up.
February 13, 2014 at 5:07 AM
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