Geolintix Consulting
Geological Mapping, Modeling, GIS (ArcGIS, QGIS) & Remote Sensing in Tucson, Arizona.
About
Born and raised in Tucson, Arizona with a passion for rocks! My name is Joel Bennett and I'm a Senior Geologist who thrives in the field and enjoys mentoring younger scientists. I bring 30+ years of experience in exploration, mapping, and geotechnical work, and I’m happiest when I’m helping teams understand what the rocks are actually trying to tell us. I value collaboration, safety, and clear communication, and I take pride in delivering reliable geological insights that support smart decision-making!
How to Get Started in GIS Mapping
Getting started in GIS is much easier than it looks from the outside. You don’t need a technical background, expensive software, or years of training—you just need a clear path. This guide walks you through the steps to go from curiosity to confidence, even if you’ve never opened GIS software before.GIS is a system that answers questions using location-based data. You take information such as roads, rivers, elevation, population, soil types, and anything else that has a location, and you layer it on a map. Then you analyze how things relate to each other. Before touching software, it helps to understand that GIS revolves around a few core ideas. Vector data represents points, lines, and polygons. Raster data represents grid-based information like elevation, temperature, or land cover. Projections define how the round Earth gets flattened into a map. Attributes are the information attached to each feature, such as river length, elevation value, or soil type. Understanding these basics makes everything else easier.The best first tool for beginners is QGIS, which is free, powerful, and widely used by professionals. You can download it from qgis.org without signing up or paying anything. QGIS works on Windows, Mac, and Linux and offers professional-level tools without a paywall. It also has extensive online tutorials and documentation. Browser-based tools like ArcGIS Online or Google Earth Engine are options as well, but QGIS is the ideal place to start.To learn GIS, you need data, and fortunately there is an enormous amount of high-quality free data available. Natural Earth provides political boundaries, rivers, lakes, and roads. USGS Earth Explorer offers elevation and satellite imagery. OpenStreetMap contains global roads, buildings, trails, and landmarks. Government open data portals often provide local boundaries, zoning, and land cover. Start with simple datasets such as country or city boundaries, road networks, rivers, or elevation data. The goal is to give yourself material to work with so the tools make sense.Once you have the data, the next step is to load it into QGIS and explore it. Add vector layers such as shapefiles or GeoJSON files, and raster layers like TIFF or IMG files. Turn layers on and off, change symbology to adjust colors and shapes, open attribute tables, zoom, pan, and measure distances. Once you load your first layers and adjust their styles, GIS stops feeling abstract and starts to feel interactive. You begin to understand how layers stack and how much information sits behind each feature.The fastest way to learn is to pick a small project with a clear goal that genuinely interests you. For example, you might map the rivers and elevation of your region, analyze potential flood zones, create a trail map with contour lines, visualize land cover, or map population density. The project doesn’t need to be impressive; it just needs to engage you. When you work on a project you care about, tools and concepts stick naturally. You’re not memorizing, you’re discovering.You don’t need to learn every tool in the beginning. Focus on core tools that are used in almost all GIS workflows. For vector layers, get familiar with operations like clip, buffer, merge, dissolve, and select by location. For raster layers, explore hillshade, reclassify, and raster calculations. Understand general GIS concepts such as projections and coordinate systems, attribute data and queries, symbology, and map layouts for final presentation. If you master these basics, you can handle the majority of beginner and intermediate GIS tasks.
After processing your data, it’s important to create a finished map. Open the layout manager in QGIS, create a new map layout, add a map frame, include a legend, title, scale bar, and north arrow, adjust fonts and colors, and export the result as a PNG or PDF. This step teaches you to communicate your data visually, not just manipulate it.Real GIS confidence comes from experimentation. Try one new tool each week, reproduce maps you find online, redesign the same map using different styles, use tutorials only when you’re stuck, and keep a folder of datasets to practice on. GIS rewards curiosity, and the more you experiment, the more intuitive the software becomes.Once you are comfortable, you can branch into more advanced topics. These include remote sensing and satellite imagery, terrain analysis such as slope, aspect, and viewshed, hydrological modeling, geology mapping, habitat modeling, urban planning, web mapping, and spatial statistics. Each area builds on the foundations you already learned, so progress naturally.Finally, be patient with yourself. GIS is a deep field, and no one masters it quickly. Feeling overwhelmed in the beginning is normal. The key is not rushing and working on one small project at a time. You will improve steadily by understanding how geographic data tells a story rather than by memorizing tools. Anyone can learn GIS if they start, experiment, and keep building on what they understand.
How to Make Your First Interactive Map
Creating your first interactive map might seem intimidating at first, but it’s much easier than it looks, and you don’t need to be a professional developer to get started. An interactive map lets users explore data dynamically—they can click on features for more information, zoom in and out, and interact with your data in a way that static maps simply can’t provide. This guide walks you through the steps from understanding what an interactive map is to publishing one online, in a way that’s approachable for beginners.Interactive maps are essentially maps connected to a dataset that respond to user actions. This could be anything from displaying population statistics when a user clicks on a city, to highlighting hiking trails when the mouse hovers over a line. At its core, it combines two components: a base map that shows geography, and data layers that provide information about features on the map. Understanding this is the first step, because it will guide every decision you make—from choosing the software to deciding how to style your data.The first step is choosing a platform to build your map. For beginners, there are several great options. ArcGIS Online is a widely used professional tool that lets you create interactive maps with minimal coding. Mapbox offers more customization and allows you to create highly stylized maps, though it may require basic knowledge of JavaScript for advanced features. Leaflet is a lightweight, open-source library for building interactive maps that run in a web browser, and it’s great if you want a hands-on coding experience. For someone just starting, I recommend using a platform like ArcGIS Online or Mapbox Studio, because they provide templates and visual editors, allowing you to focus on design and functionality without getting bogged down by code.Once you’ve chosen a platform, the next step is to select the data you want to display. Good data is critical for an interactive map to be meaningful. You can use your own data if you have it, or find free datasets online. Sources like OpenStreetMap provide detailed geographic features, while government portals often provide shapefiles or GeoJSON files for boundaries, roads, rivers, or points of interest. For beginners, it’s best to start with a simple dataset, such as locations of landmarks in your city or a set of hiking trails, because it will make the map easier to manage and faster to load.After gathering your data, it’s time to prepare it. Preparation might involve cleaning up your dataset, converting it into a format your platform can use, and ensuring that attributes are correctly labeled. For example, if you’re mapping restaurants, make sure each entry has a name, address, and category so that users can click on a point and get useful information. At this stage, it’s also important to think about projections. Most web maps use the Web Mercator projection, so if your data is in another projection, you may need to reproject it to align correctly with the base map.With your data ready, you can start adding it to your interactive map. Most beginner-friendly platforms let you upload a dataset directly and automatically create points, lines, or polygons. Once added, you can configure how the map reacts when users interact with it. For example, clicking on a point can display a popup with additional information, hovering over a polygon can highlight it, and color can represent different categories or values. Take time to experiment with different settings; the visual design of your map is just as important as the data itself because it determines how easily users can interpret your information.Styling your interactive map is the next step. Think about the overall readability and visual hierarchy. Choose colors that are intuitive and distinguishable. If you’re mapping parks and roads, make sure the colors contrast so that important features stand out. Adjust the thickness of lines, the size of points, and the labels so that they are clear but not overwhelming. Many platforms allow you to include legends, scale bars, and attribution, which are essential for creating a professional-looking map. Keep in mind that interactive maps are often viewed on screens of different sizes, so make sure your design is responsive and legible on both desktops and mobile devices.Once your map is styled, it’s time to test it. Click on points, zoom in and out, and interact with each layer as a user would. Make sure popups display the correct information, colors are consistent, and there are no misaligned features. Testing is critical because even a small error can confuse users and undermine the credibility of your map. This step may also reveal ways to improve usability, such as grouping features, simplifying dense data, or adding search functionality so users can find what they are looking for quickly.Finally, you’re ready to publish your map. Platforms like ArcGIS Online and Mapbox provide simple options to share your map via a link or embed it in a website. You can also export your map for use in other applications, but publishing it online makes it interactive for anyone with an internet connection. Once live, you can gather feedback from viewers and make iterative improvements. One of the advantages of interactive maps is that they can evolve over time, so don’t feel like it has to be perfect on the first try.Creating your first interactive map is an achievable goal for any beginner, and it’s an excellent way to develop practical GIS and visualization skills. By understanding the purpose of an interactive map, choosing a beginner-friendly platform, gathering and preparing data, configuring interactivity, styling thoughtfully, testing thoroughly, and finally publishing it, you’ll gain confidence and be ready to tackle more complex projects. Interactive maps transform raw data into a dynamic, engaging story, and starting with a simple map today can open the door to endless possibilities in mapping, analysis, and communication.
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