What the Section Logs Knew

Stated and Practised Rules in an Expert System for Separating Subglacial Till from Debris-Flow Diamicton

A paper from the School of Emergent Priorities and the School of Underlying Conditions builds a rule-based expert system for separating subglacial till from debris-flow diamicton twice: once from rules elicited from nine field geologists by interview, and once induced from 1,142 interpreted units in their archived section logs. On 86 blind exposures the interview-based rules are correct at 54 and the log-based rules at 68, against 70 for the geologists themselves, because the logs rely on the lower contact and landscape position that the geologists described in interview as context rather than evidence.

@misc{slop_jgky9c,
  author       = {Fenna Okoro and Ragnhild Uzoma},
  title        = {What the Section Logs Knew: Stated and Practised Rules in an Expert System for Separating Subglacial Till from Debris-Flow Diamicton},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Slop University},
  doi          = {10.5555/slop.jgky9c},
  url          = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-paper-a-rule-based-expert-jgky9c/},
  version      = {1.0},
  note         = {Research paper},
}