[okfn-za] Geological Data

[mtb at martinb.za.net]

Hi All,

I have a vested interest in being able to use geological data freely, 
specifically, the boundaries between different rock units as found on 
geological maps.

While data is available, much of it is at too high a scale to be very 
useful for looking at specific sites. (That and the link to the 1:250 
000 scale maps is broken off this page: 
http://www.geoscience.org.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=203:data-sales&catid=46&Itemid=176 
)

The people responsible for this in South Africa are the Council for 
Geoscience. Their licensing is incredibly restrictive:
http://www.geoscience.org.za/content/SDMLicense.pdf

How does this gel with the Freedom of Information act? I note that 
other spatial information seems to be freely available, so why is the 
geological data locked up to this extent?

This looks like stuff that we should be able to freely access, since it 
contains information on mines and mineral claims and so on: 
http://www.geoscience.org.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=206:spatially-referenced-attribute-data&catid=46&Itemid=176 
I can not see how to get significant amounts of this without quite a 
heavy financial outlay.

This is the sort of thing that should be possible, but why only a cd 
and not online: 
http://www.geoscience.org.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=453&Itemid=292

Has anyone dealt with the CGS? I do not really see a way forward on 
this, but have no real background in the subject.

Martin