Searching and Viewing Exploratory Locations and Geodatasets

Each Exploratory Location on the GDMS system has a Details page, where basic information about the investigation point can be viewed (e.g. co-ordinates, ground investigation technique, reference). These are grouped together into Geodatasets with a separate Details page, from which the investigation results themselves can be downloaded as a Geodata file.

Exploratory Locations can be viewed as layers on the map.

The various ways you can find and navigate to the details page for an Exploratory Location or Geodataset are described below.

Summary Grids

All Exploratory Locations and Geodatasets including key details can be viewed from specific summary grids.

You can access them at Main Menu > Exploratory Locations.

Filter and sort the full list on the various fields to find the particular object you are interested in.

To view the details page for an Exploratory Location or Geodataset, select it and click View on the command bar.

You can export the currently filtered list of objects as a CSV for analysis outside of the system by clicking Export to CSV on the command bar. See here for further guidance on this tool.

Viewing Exploratory Locations on the Map

Exploratory Locations can be viewed on the map by turning on the Exploratory Locations layer. Some mapping layers are only available at certain zoom levels. If  Exploratory Location layers are greyed out, zoom in for them to become available to view.

Filtered Exploratory Locations from a summary grid can be viewed as a custom layer using the Show on Map functionality.

Viewing from a Linked Object

One or more Geodatasets can optionally be linked to a Report .

A Geodataset is always linked to one or more Exploratory Locations.

By navigating to the Details page for one of these objects, you can quickly navigate to the other linked objects.

Viewing Geodataset Details

Use one of the Search tools to navigate to the Details page of the Exploratory Location. The Details page lists basic information including co-ordinates and reference numbers etc.

To view more detailed information, such as the observed geology and testing results, you should download the associated Geodata File for interrogation outside of the system.

To do this, first navigate to the details page of the associated Geodataset object on GDMS, by clicking the View Geodataset button on the Command Bar.

From there, click Download Geodatafile on the Command Bar.

You will need to import the Geodata File into a compatible software package to interrogate the contents. The most common format is AGS, and there are many suitable packages available, some of which are listed on the AGS Website

Searching the Map 

Exploratory Locations and Geodatasets within a specified area on the map can be accessed with Map Geometry Search.

Accessing BGS information

You can access borehole records and other information provided by the British Geological Society (BGS) from the map.

To display the information turn on layer Third Party Mapping > British Geological Society (BGS) > Boreholes using the Legend.

If you select a particular item some basic information is displayed as a tooltip with a link to the full record on the BGS website.