3D surfaces, such as Digital Elevation Models (DEM), form the basis of many geoscientific tasks. This NSF funded project aims to create natural and intuitive ways for geoscientists, to perceive and interact with surface data via vision, touch and sound. The Haptic/Auditory Surface Manipulation System, currently developed at Iowa State University’s Virtual Reality Applications Center (VRAC) uses a Omni phantom haptic (force-feedback) device to feel the surface with a “virtual fingertip” and to deform and cut it via virtual tools.