Terms of Use

Last updated: October 16, 2026

These Terms of Use and End User License Agreement (“Terms” or “EULA”) govern your access to and use of Bedrock, a field geology application published by Nature Tools, LLC (“Nature Tools,” “we,” “us,” or “our”), together with its related subscriptions, content, data services, documentation, and updates. By downloading, installing, accessing, subscribing to, or using Bedrock, you agree to these Terms.

If you do not agree to these Terms, do not download or use Bedrock.

1. What Bedrock Is

Bedrock is a geology-first field companion. It brings together mapped geology, geologic units and ages, lithology, deep time, paleogeographic reconstructions, fossil occurrences, landforms, geologic hazards, rock and sediment identification aids, and a structured field notebook for places, observations, samples, strike and dip measurements, measured sections, traverses, sketches, and photographs.

Bedrock is an interpretive and educational tool. It is intended to help students, rockhounds, educators, field workers, and curious explorers understand the ground beneath them. It is not a substitute for professional judgment, site-specific investigation, current official information, field training, or common sense.

2. License Grant

Subject to these Terms and any applicable payment, Nature Tools grants you a limited, personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable, revocable license to download, install, and use Bedrock on devices that you own or control, for lawful personal, educational, research, field, or professional purposes.

If you obtained Bedrock from the Apple App Store, this license is limited to use on Apple-branded products that you own or control and as permitted by the Usage Rules in the Apple Media Services Terms and Conditions, except that Bedrock may be accessed and used by other accounts associated with you through Family Sharing or volume purchasing where those features are offered.

Bedrock is licensed, not sold. Nature Tools and its licensors keep all rights not expressly granted to you.

3. Acceptable Use

You may not:

• copy, resell, sublicense, rent, lease, or commercially redistribute Bedrock except as expressly permitted;
• reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble Bedrock, bypass security or licensing, or attempt unauthorized access, except where applicable law expressly permits it despite this restriction;
• scrape, bulk-extract, mirror, or republish geologic, fossil, hazard, or map data or service output in violation of the applicable provider’s terms or license;
• use Bedrock to locate, loot, damage, or unlawfully collect from fossil sites, archaeological or cultural sites, protected areas, or private property;
• use Bedrock to violate laws, trespass, harass others, damage property, or endanger people or wildlife;
• misrepresent Bedrock output as an official geologic map, survey, engineering or geotechnical report, hazard determination, mineral appraisal, or authenticated identification; or
• use Bedrock in a way that disrupts, overloads, damages, or impairs Bedrock, Nature Tools systems, or third-party providers.

4. Not Professional Geologic, Engineering, or Hazard Advice

Bedrock does not provide professional geologic, geotechnical, engineering, environmental, hydrogeologic, mining, mineral-exploration, or legal advice. Bedrock output is not a site investigation, and it is not a substitute for the work of a licensed professional geologist, engineer, surveyor, or other qualified expert.

Do not use Bedrock as the basis for decisions about building sites, foundations, slope stability, groundwater, contamination, mineral rights, mining claims, property purchases, insurance, or regulatory compliance.

5. Geologic Hazards Are Not Warnings

Bedrock may display information about earthquakes, faults, volcanoes, landslides, rockfall, floods, sinkholes, radon, and other geologic or natural hazards. This information is general context drawn from public datasets. It may be incomplete, generalized, out of date, or wrong for a specific location.

Bedrock is not an emergency-alert, early-warning, navigation, rescue, or safety-monitoring service. It does not issue warnings or monitor conditions in real time. Follow current instructions from emergency officials, the U.S. Geological Survey, the National Weather Service, land managers, and other authoritative sources.

6. Field Safety and Personal Responsibility

Geologic fieldwork carries real risks, including falling rock, unstable slopes and talus, cliff edges, loose footing, road cuts next to traffic, quarries, flowing water, flash floods, extreme heat or cold, wildlife, remoteness, and limited communications.

• Never enter abandoned mines, adits, shafts, or unstable caves. They can contain bad air, unstable ground, hidden drops, and other deadly hazards.
• Wear eye protection and other appropriate safety equipment when using a rock hammer, chisel, or other tools.
• Stay well clear of traffic when examining road cuts, and follow posted rules at quarries and pits.
• Carry appropriate maps, navigation tools, emergency communication equipment, water, and supplies, and tell someone your plans.

You are solely responsible for evaluating conditions, your experience, your equipment, applicable laws, and whether an activity is appropriate. Bedrock does not guarantee that any outcrop, locality, route, or access point is safe, open, legal, or reachable.

7. Rock, Mineral, Sediment, and Fossil Identification

Bedrock’s identification and classification tools are aids for reasoning through evidence. Any result, whether it comes from an image, your entered observations, or a classification key, is provisional. Reliable identification often depends on texture, grain size, hardness, cleavage, luster, reaction to acid, field setting, laboratory analysis, and expert review that Bedrock cannot perform.

Do not rely on Bedrock to determine the value, authenticity, or legality of a specimen, including meteorites, gemstones, precious metals, or fossils, or to decide whether a material is safe to handle.

Some minerals and rocks can be hazardous, including asbestiform minerals, radioactive minerals, and minerals containing arsenic, mercury, or lead. Do not taste, inhale dust from, or grind unknown specimens. If you perform field tests such as dilute acid tests, follow the safety instructions for the materials you use and keep them away from children.

8. Collecting, Fossils, and Cultural Resources

Rules for collecting rocks, minerals, and fossils vary widely by land owner, land manager, and jurisdiction. Collecting is prohibited in many protected areas, including most national parks and monuments. On U.S. federal lands, collecting vertebrate fossils generally requires a permit, and archaeological and cultural resources are protected by law. Collecting on private land requires the owner’s permission.

Bedrock showing a fossil occurrence, mineral locality, outcrop, or geologic unit does not mean the location is accessible or that collecting there is legal. You are responsible for knowing and following all collecting rules, permit requirements, and reporting obligations before you collect, disturb, or remove anything.

Bedrock does not provide advice about mining claims, mineral rights, prospecting, or commercial collecting.

9. Land Ownership, Boundaries, and Access

Land ownership, protected-area boundaries, management designations, closures, and access information shown in or linked from Bedrock may be incomplete, generalized, delayed, or inaccurate. Bedrock does not provide legal boundary, title, trespass, access, or survey advice. Verify ownership, permission, closures, and regulations with current authoritative sources before entering land.

10. Geologic Data, Maps, and Interpretation

Geologic information is uncertain by nature. In particular:

• mapped contacts, faults, and unit descriptions vary in scale, age, method, and precision, and a unit mapped at your location may not be what is exposed at your feet;
• geologic ages and time-scale boundaries are periodically revised;
• paleogeographic reconstructions are models with significant uncertainty, especially for older time periods;
• fossil occurrence records may have imprecise, generalized, or incorrect coordinates and identifications; and
• summaries, field expectations, confidence indicators, and other interpretations generated by Bedrock are informational and may be incomplete or wrong.

Treat Bedrock as an interpretive aid that helps you ask better questions in the field, not as a definitive authority.

11. Field Measurements

Bedrock may use your device’s compass, motion sensors, camera, and location services to help record strike and dip, orientation, elevation, coordinates, and similar measurements. Device sensors can be affected by calibration, magnetic interference from nearby metal, rock, vehicles, or electronics, magnetic declination settings, case design, and how the device is held.

Measurements made with Bedrock are approximate. Check them against a calibrated compass-clinometer, survey-grade instrument, or other appropriate tool when accuracy matters.

12. Your Field Notebook and Content

You keep ownership of the notes, photographs, sketches, samples, measurements, traverses, and other content you create in Bedrock (“Your Content”). If you use a Bedrock feature that stores, syncs, processes, or shares Your Content through Nature Tools services, you give Nature Tools a limited permission to host, process, and transmit Your Content only as needed to provide that feature to you.

You are responsible for Your Content, for keeping your own backups, and for reviewing anything you export, share, or publish. Precise coordinates can reveal fossil sites, mineral localities, cultural sites, research sites, private property, or your own movements. Our handling of personal information is described in the Bedrock Privacy Policy.

13. Subscriptions and Purchases

Some Bedrock features may require a paid subscription, in-app purchase, or other entitlement. Prices, billing periods, free trials, and included features are shown before you purchase.

• Subscriptions purchased through the App Store are charged to your Apple Account and renew automatically unless canceled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period.
• You can manage or cancel a subscription in your Apple Account subscription settings. Deleting Bedrock does not cancel a subscription.
• Any unused portion of a free trial may be forfeited when you purchase a subscription, where applicable.
• Refunds for App Store purchases are handled by Apple under Apple’s policies.

Purchases made through another platform or payment provider are also governed by that provider’s terms.

14. Third-Party Data and Services

Bedrock may display, query, link to, or depend on third-party maps, datasets, APIs, and services. These may include Macrostrat, the U.S. Geological Survey, the International Commission on Stratigraphy, the Paleobiology Database and paleogeographic reconstruction services, the Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program, FEMA, other public hazard and scientific datasets, map providers, app stores, and payment systems.

Third-party content remains subject to its provider’s own terms, licenses, attribution requirements, availability, and privacy practices. Nature Tools does not control and is not responsible for third-party services, interruptions, changes, errors, or omissions. You must also follow any third-party terms that apply to you when using Bedrock, such as your wireless carrier’s terms.

15. Features in Development

Bedrock is actively being developed. Beta, preview, or early-access features may be incomplete, change significantly, lose data, or be removed. Do not rely on preview features for important records without keeping your own backups.

16. Availability, Changes, and Updates

We may add, modify, suspend, restrict, or discontinue features, data sources, integrations, pricing, or access. We may issue updates that are required for continued operation, security, compatibility, or licensing.

We do not guarantee uninterrupted access, permanent availability of any dataset, compatibility with every device, or continued support for every operating-system version.

17. Feedback

If you submit ideas, suggestions, corrections, or other feedback, you grant Nature Tools permission to use that feedback without restriction or compensation. This does not give us ownership of your photographs, field notes, or other content you create.

18. Intellectual Property

Bedrock, its software, design, branding, documentation, original text, illustrations, classification keys, organization, and other Nature Tools content are owned by Nature Tools or its licensors and are protected by intellectual-property laws.

Third-party datasets, maps, imagery, names, and trademarks remain the property of their respective owners. Nothing in these Terms transfers ownership of Bedrock or third-party content to you.

19. Disclaimer of Warranties

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, BEDROCK IS PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE,” WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WARRANTIES OF ACCURACY, RELIABILITY, AVAILABILITY, MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT.

Nature Tools does not warrant that Bedrock, its identifications, its measurements, or its geologic, fossil, or hazard information will be error-free, uninterrupted, complete, current, safe for any particular activity, or suitable for any specific decision or purpose.

20. Limitation of Liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, NATURE TOOLS AND ITS OWNERS, EMPLOYEES, CONTRACTORS, LICENSORS, AND SERVICE PROVIDERS WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES; LOSS OF DATA, PROFITS, REVENUE, BUSINESS, OR GOODWILL; PERSONAL INJURY; PROPERTY DAMAGE; TRESPASS; FINES OR PENALTIES, INCLUDING FOR UNLAWFUL COLLECTING; OR LOSSES ARISING FROM RELIANCE ON BEDROCK, ITS IDENTIFICATIONS OR MEASUREMENTS, THIRD-PARTY DATA, OR FIELD DECISIONS.

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, NATURE TOOLS’ TOTAL LIABILITY FOR CLAIMS RELATING TO BEDROCK WILL NOT EXCEED THE GREATER OF THE AMOUNT YOU PAID FOR BEDROCK DURING THE TWELVE MONTHS BEFORE THE CLAIM OR USD $50.

Some jurisdictions do not allow certain warranty exclusions or liability limitations, so some provisions may not apply to you.

21. Indemnification

To the extent permitted by law, you agree to indemnify and hold harmless Nature Tools and its owners, employees, contractors, licensors, and service providers from claims, losses, liabilities, and expenses arising from your misuse of Bedrock, violation of these Terms, unlawful conduct, unlawful collecting, trespass, or infringement of another person’s rights.

22. Suspension and Termination

We may suspend or terminate your license if you violate these Terms, misuse the service, interfere with systems or providers, fail to pay applicable charges, or create legal, security, or operational risk. When your license ends, you must stop using Bedrock and delete it from your devices.

You may stop using Bedrock at any time. Termination does not automatically cancel subscriptions purchased through an app marketplace or other payment platform. Sections that by their nature should survive termination will survive.

23. Legal and Export Compliance

You represent and warrant that you are not located in a country that is subject to a U.S. Government embargo or that has been designated by the U.S. Government as a “terrorist supporting” country, and that you are not listed on any U.S. Government list of prohibited or restricted parties. You agree to comply with all applicable export and sanctions laws when using Bedrock.

24. Apple App Store Terms

If you obtained Bedrock from the Apple App Store, you and Nature Tools acknowledge and agree that:

• Parties. These Terms are between you and Nature Tools only, not Apple Inc. (“Apple”). Nature Tools, not Apple, is solely responsible for Bedrock and its content.
• Maintenance and support. Nature Tools is solely responsible for providing any maintenance and support for Bedrock. Apple has no obligation to furnish any maintenance or support services for Bedrock.
• Warranty. If Bedrock fails to conform to any applicable warranty, you may notify Apple, and Apple will refund the purchase price, if any, for Bedrock. To the maximum extent permitted by law, Apple has no other warranty obligation with respect to Bedrock, and any other claims, losses, liabilities, damages, costs, or expenses attributable to a failure to conform to a warranty are Nature Tools’ responsibility to the extent not disclaimed in these Terms.
• Product claims. Nature Tools, not Apple, is responsible for addressing any claims by you or a third party relating to Bedrock or your possession and use of it, including product-liability claims, claims that Bedrock fails to conform to any applicable legal or regulatory requirement, and claims arising under consumer-protection, privacy, or similar laws.
• Intellectual property. If a third party claims that Bedrock or your possession and use of it infringes that third party’s intellectual-property rights, Nature Tools, not Apple, is solely responsible for the investigation, defense, settlement, and discharge of that claim.
• Third-party beneficiary. Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms. Once you accept these Terms, Apple will have the right, and will be deemed to have accepted the right, to enforce these Terms against you as a third-party beneficiary.

If these Terms conflict with the Apple Media Services Terms and Conditions on a matter they govern, the Apple terms control to the extent of the conflict.

25. Governing Law and Venue

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Montana, without regard to conflict-of-law principles. Any dispute not subject to a mandatory alternative process will be brought in a court of competent jurisdiction located in Missoula County, Montana, unless applicable law requires otherwise. Nothing in these Terms limits consumer-protection rights that cannot be waived under the law where you live.

26. Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms. The revised Terms become effective when posted or on a later date stated in the notice. Continued use of Bedrock after the effective date constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms where permitted by law.

27. General Terms

If any provision is found unenforceable, the remaining provisions remain in effect. Failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. You may not assign these Terms without our consent; we may assign them in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets. These Terms, together with applicable purchase terms and the Bedrock Privacy Policy, form the entire agreement governing your use of Bedrock.

28. Contact

Questions, complaints, or claims about Bedrock or these Terms may be sent to:

Nature Tools, LLC
Missoula, Montana
radd@nature-tools.com

This document is a practical working draft and should be reviewed by qualified legal counsel before relying on it as final legal advice.