# Cross-Domain Foundation Model Adaptation: Pioneering Computer Vision Models for Geophysical Data Analysis

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.12396 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.12396/

## Key facts

- Cited by 4 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 43 of its 94 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 22 Aug 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 43)

- [BERT: Pre-training of Deep Bidirectional Transformers for Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.04805/) (2018)
- [Learning Transferable Visual Models From Natural Language Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.00020/) (2021)
- [Language Models are Few-Shot Learners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.14165/) (2020)
- [An Image is Worth 16x16 Words: Transformers for Image Recognition at Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.11929/) (2020)
- [U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1505.04597/) (2015)
- [LoRA: Low-Rank Adaptation of Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.09685/) (2021)
- [LLaMA: Open and Efficient Foundation Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.13971/) (2023)
- [Distilling the Knowledge in a Neural Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1503.02531/) (2015)
- [Segment Anything](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.02643/) (2023)
- [DINOv2: Learning Robust Visual Features without Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.07193/) (2023)
- [Masked Autoencoders Are Scalable Vision Learners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.06377/) (2021)
- [Emerging Properties in Self-Supervised Vision Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.14294/) (2021)
- [Parameter-Efficient Transfer Learning for NLP](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1902.00751/) (2019)
- [On the Opportunities and Risks of Foundation Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.07258/) (2021)
- [SAM 2: Segment Anything in Images and Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.00714/) (2024)
- [Unsupervised Learning of Visual Features by Contrasting Cluster Assignments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.09882/) (2020)
- [Billion-scale similarity search with GPUs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1702.08734/) (2017)
- [Vision Transformers for Dense Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.13413/) (2021)
- [Visual Prompt Tuning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.12119/) (2022)
- [Rethinking Semantic Segmentation from a Sequence-to-Sequence Perspective with Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.15840/) (2020)
- [iBOT: Image BERT Pre-Training with Online Tokenizer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.07832/) (2021)
- [Florence: A New Foundation Model for Computer Vision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.11432/) (2021)
- [Genie: Generative Interactive Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.15391/) (2024)
- [Distilling Step-by-Step! Outperforming Larger Language Models with Less Training Data and Smaller Model Sizes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.02301/) (2023)
- [End-to-end Autonomous Driving: Challenges and Frontiers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.16927/) (2023)
- [LoRA Learns Less and Forgets Less](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.09673/) (2024)
- [A Survey on Multimodal Large Language Models for Autonomous Driving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.12320/) (2023)
- [Multimodal Foundation Models: From Specialists to General-Purpose Assistants](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.10020/) (2023)
- [Spatial-Temporal Transformer Networks for Traffic Flow Forecasting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.02908/) (2020)
- [A Self-Supervised Descriptor for Image Copy Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.10261/) (2022)

## Built on by (most cited first, 4 of 4)

- [Unraveling Spatio-Temporal Foundation Models via the Pipeline Lens: A Comprehensive Review](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.01364/) (2025)
- [SeisMoLLM: Advancing Seismic Monitoring via Cross-modal Transfer with Pre-trained Large Language Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.19960/) (2025)
- [Tracking the Spatiotemporal Evolution of Landslide Scars Using a Vision Foundation Model: A Novel and Universal Framework](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.10084/) (2025)
- [Parameter-Efficient Adaptation of Pre-Trained Vision Foundation Models for Active and Passive Seismic Data Denoising](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.10953/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We explore adapting foundation models (FMs) from the computer vision domain to geoscience. FMs, large neural networks trained on massive datasets, excel in diverse tasks with remarkable adaptability and generality. However, geoscience faces challenges like lacking curated training datasets and high computational costs for developing specialized FMs. This study considers adapting FMs from computer vision to geoscience, analyzing their scale, adaptability, and generality for geoscientific data analysis. We introduce a workflow that leverages existing computer vision FMs, fine-tuning them for geoscientific tasks, reducing development costs while enhancing accuracy. Through experiments, we demonstrate this workflow's effectiveness in broad applications to process and interpret geoscientific data of lunar images, seismic data, DAS arrays and so on. Our findings introduce advanced ML techniques to geoscience, proving the feasibility and advantages of cross-domain FMs adaptation, driving further advancements in geoscientific data analysis and offering valuable insights for FMs applications in other scientific domains.