This is a book about geography. It is also about Geographic Information Systems (GIS) – a fundamental set of automated ideas and concepts rooted in over 2500 years of explorations and geographic research (Dobson, 1995) and designed to provide answers to questions based on mapped data. As a practicing geographer I have long been intrigued by the idea of geographer as explorer.
This study was part of a cooperative project with the Indonesian Institute of Sciences, Bandung, Java, the Michigan Technological University group (W.I Rose, Jr., principle investigator) and the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics, University of Hawaii group (G.P.L. Walker, principle investigator).