The purpose of this project is to illustrate the geological development of the island of Oahu. It will include the raising and forming of the Waiane mountain range and then the raising and forming of the Koolau mountain range, which will enventually for the valley between the two mountain ranges (thus the single island of Oahu). I plan on showing some of the geological devolpment of some well known landmarks such as: Diamond Head, Punchbow, Haunauma Bay, Salt Lake. And not least I would like to illustrate the dramatic landslide that formed and shaped the Windward side of Oahu that we see today.
At this point I am having difficulty directly importing DEM's (digital elevation maps) into Blender. One work around has been to use Bryce and export the file as a .dxf which will import into Blender.

I am also using this video tutorial from Lynda.com
Great tutorial (actually a self-directed course) for Blender from Neal Hirsig Tufts University(last edited: 5-29-08)
Ocean tutorials by Colin Lister of the "Cog Project" 
Joe's first waves made in Blender (click for new window)
I have also used Bryce 5.5 (download site) which is a a open source product with some success.
For more information go to Bryce (DAZ web site for paid upgrade). Here is a cheatsheet I made for Bryce (click here) (.pdf)