Whilst trying to fix an unrelated issue, I came across the Jurassic Coast, which has been mapped in OSM as (correctly I believe) geological=palaeontological_site. Unfortunately, what is in OSM seems to be a bit … unfinished - see e.g. here and here. The wikipedia page suggests it should perhaps be a series of 8 pieces of coast, not one long one, and neither it nor the website defines how far out to sea or in to land it goes.
Does anyone fancy having a go at investigating it and fixing it? I mention it here rather than one one of the 60-odd changesets that created it because lots of people have had a go at it over the years. It’s definitely the wrong end of the country for me…
I think you’re right that those (a red line drawn on a low-res copy of a Crown Copyright OS 1:10000 map) aren’t usable, but if there’s a statement somewhere that says (for example) “from the top of the cliff at X” that is licence compatible I guess we might be able to use that?
I live near the western edge of this “relation”, for an area named “The Jurassic Coast”.
I’ve looked at the relation a few times, but have never had the desire improve it.
The area is slightly misleadingly tagged as geological=palaeontological_site.
The area is actually a “World Heritage Site”, a coastline where 185 million years of rock layers are exposed as you travel along it, with associated fossils in appropriate age rocks. A site that played a huge part in our understanding of geology & paleontology. Hence the designations.
The official name for this World Heritage Site is “Dorset and East Devon Coast”. Not the most inspiring of names. It has been branded “Jurassic Coast”, a name which has become the common name.
The name of the site is a problem, and one of the reasons I’ve never got round to doing anything. It appears that in OSM we should use the official listing name. But in this case"Jurassic Coast" is the dominant name “on the ground”.
The boundary of the area is available, and is managed by Historic England. They use the designation name of “Dorset and East Devon Coast”. The area is available under OGL, through the arcgis website, and available in several formats. But… it needs to be converted to be used in OSM. Another reason I kept away from it.
The Historic England Open Data Hub has links to all the data they make available. Might be other useful links on that page?
The link to the England - World Heritage Site data is Here.
The site is broken up into sections. The sections individually and collectively are of global importance for geology, but not all of the sections produce fossils.
The western half, and specifically the first section (Exmouth to Sidmouth) contains the oldest rocks and is not recognised as important for fossils.
I decided to fix? the area using the shapefile provided by Historic England.
I converted England, World Heritage Sites file using Qgis, and compared the new file with OSMUK Cadastral Layer. It does match along many sections in urban areas. But it is notable that the World Heritage Site data is commonly separate from existing boundaries.
I split up the existing Jurassic Coast area, then merged with the HE Jurassic Coast data.
The new areas consisted of a lot more nodes, so I had to divide them up. That could do with some improvements. They’re brought together in a relation.
If anyone wishes to change the tagging, or edit the division of the areas, then go ahead.