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Geologic mapping is evolving from primarily a method of communication among earth scientists into a decision-making tool for multidisciplinary and multi programmatic activities. The natural philosophy for this change in geologic display is the desire for ecological harmony in an environment favorable for the survival of mankind. The pragmatic dictates for the change are public pressures for a cost-accounting approach to provide fiscal control over development strategies. Control is expected to provide more value to a wider range of benefits and satisfy the growing demand for improved quality of life as growth proceeds. Total land use planning, unfolding on a national scale, requires more than a local geologic data array; it must include area-wide approaches to land, water, air, people, wildlife, and amenity sheds as a total ecological logic. Short-term cleanup goals must integrate with responsibilities for natural amenities and resources conditions within the environments of future generations. Comprehensive planning processes are unfolding as a major means of reaching solutions for comprehensive problem analysis, understanding, and solution programming. Comprehensiveness raises special problems as to jurisdictional, organizational, budgetary, and disciplinary logic systems as guides to future planning and program activities. Geonatural planning, although important, must be integratable with other planning elements. These influences require reassessment of the suitability of traditional biological-chemical-geologic data criteria, banks, and displays to assist decisions about logic systems for planning, priority setting, programming, and project activities. The geologic profession has not yet established the best relativity of its traditions to the requirements of social and economic expansion.

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