Touting the contribution of geoscience to the Arizona economy

Page 1 of 2 page Geoscience and Arizona.

How do you quantify the impact of geology and the geoscience community on the health and vigor of a state’s economy? That’s no small task, but the American Geosciences Institute, an umbrella organization for America’s geoscience community, has made a serious attempt to do this and is currently releasing State Geoscience Information Factsheets (Arizona). 

AGI’s Geoscience Policy team created State Geoscience Information factsheets to inform geoscientists and decision makers on how geoscience impacts their state. Arizona is the latest state included in the American Geosciences Institute’s (AGI) Geoscience in Your State program.  

 
AGI’s Arizona fact sheet highlights the contribution of geoscience and geologic resources to:   

•  Employment – 6,600 geoscience employees | 12,400 jobs in mining
•  Economic impact - $5.56 billion in nonfuel mineral production in 2016
•  Minerals | Water | Energy use – oil, gas, geothermal, uranium
•   Federal research dollars from NSF ($7.46 billion FY 2016), USGS, NASA, EPA, and NOAA
•  Major federal facilities – USGS, NSF National Optical Astronomy Obs., Tucson
•  FEMA preparedness grants since 2005 total $474 million.

This thumbnail sketch provides an overview of the economic contributions and impact that geology and the geoscience community bring to the broader state community.

What about Geotourism? In Arizona’s case, an important addition would be the economic impact of the geology of our national and state parks on local and state economy. According to the Arizona Office of Tourism, in 2015 Arizona welcomed 42.1 million visitors who collectively spent $21 billion. It’s obvious that many of these visitors are drawn to Arizona by the scenic beauty that results from our spectacular geology in areas like Grand Canyon and the Red Rock Country around Sedona. Tourism supports nearly 180,000 jobs and generated $2.99 billion in tax revenue in 2015.

AZGS Resources Existing AZGS resources that complement this AGI factsheet and directly benefit the geotechnical and thus the broader community include the more than 1,000 geologic documents – maps and digital maps, reports, bulletins, open-file reports, and Down-to-Earth booklets – available free at our AZGS Online Document Repository. Our AZGS web site includes commonly sought information on geologic hazards, mineral resources, and environmental geology, outreach, and energy resources.

Holdings of the AZGS Mining Data website:  400,000 document pages, 20,800+ mine files, 8,500 reports, 6,800 maps and nearly 6,000 photographs. Most of these documents are unpublished original materials that cannot be acquired elsewhere.  

Acknowledgments. We thank the AGI state factsheet crew for pulling this information together into one tight bundle. 

PA Pearthree | FM Conway

Posted 28 June 2017