GeoInformatics SystemsOrganizations & AgenciesPublications & Documents

Geoinformatics Systems


CoreWall -
www.evl.uic.edu/cavern/corewall
Key Contact: Emi Ito (eito@umn.edu)
The CoreWall Suite is a collaborative development for a real-time stratigraphic correlation, core description and data visualization system to be used by the marine, terrestrial and Antarctic science communities. The development is being carried out in broad collaboration with stakeholders in these science communities. CoreWall software suite includes: Corelyzer (a scalable, extensible visualization tool developed to enhance the study of geological cores); Correlator (used to create composite and spliced stratigraphic sections from multiple cores for core-core and core-log integration); and CoreNavigator (a 3D visual indexer of complex core-stratigraphic sedimentary datasets and databases).
EarthChem -
www.earthchem.org
Key Contact: Kerstin Lehnert (lehnert@ldeo.columbia.edu); Doug Walker (jdwalker@ku.edu); Albrecht Hofmann (hofmann@mpch-mainz.mpg.de)
EarthChem is a community-driven effort to facilitate the preservation, discovery, access and visualization of the widest and richest geochemical datasets. The EarthChem Portal offers a "one-stop-shop" for geochemistry data of the solid earth with access to, and seamless searches across multiple data systems. The portal features mapping and visualization tools. Earthchem builds and maintains topical data collections and provides access to topical datasets developed and maintained by partner projects. For example, the EarthChem Deep Lithosphere Dataset contains geochemical and petrological data from lower crust and upper mantle xenoliths. EarthChem was founded as a consortium in 2003 by members of the igneous rock database projects PetDB, GEOROC and NAVDAT (Rick Carlson, Carnegie Institution of Washington; Albrecht Hofmann, Max-Planck-Institute fuer Chemie, Germany; Kerstin Lehnert, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University; Doug Walker, University of Kansas). The consortium's goal is to nurture synergies among the projects, minimize duplication of effort, and share tools and approaches.
GEON -
www.geongrid.org
Key Contact: Chaitan Baru (baru@sdsc.edu)
The Geosciences Network (GEON) project is a collaboration among a dozen PI institutions and a number of other partner projects, institutions, and agencies to develop cyberinfrastructure in support of an environment for integrative geoscience research.
GPlates - GPlates
Key Contact: Dietmar Müller (d.muller at usyd.edu.au)
GPlates is desktop software for the interactive visualisation of plate-tectonics. GPlates offers a combination of interactive plate-tectonic reconstructions, geographic information system (GIS) functionality and raster data visualization. GPlates enables both the visualization and the manipulation of plate-tectonic reconstructions and associated data through geological time. GPlates runs on Windows and Linux. The software can be downloaded at the GPlates web site.
HIS - CUAHSI Hydrologic Information Systems
Key Contact: David R. Maidment www.ce.utexas.edu/prof/maidment/home.html
The Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc, (CUAHSI) is an organization with more than 100 US universities as members which is supported by the Earth Sciences Division of NSF to advance hydrologic science in the United States. The CUAHSI Hydrologic Information System (HIS) program provides information system infrastructure and services to help achieve this goal. HIS presently focuses on surface water, but is expanding to handle groundwater. CUAHSI HIS Server provides a "common window" on water data, providing direct access to the observational data in the archives of USGS National Water Information System, the EPA Storet (Storage and Retrieval) system, and the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC).
Janus - Janus Web Database
Key Contact: Rakesh Mithal (Supervisor of USIO Databases and Archives) mithal@iodp.tamu.edu
Janus Web provides access to ODP's and IODP's Oracle relational database Janus. The database contains 450 tables of ODP's marine geoscience data that are collected onboard the drillship JOIDES Resolution. The database includes paleontological, lithostratigraphic, chemical, physical, sedimentological, and geophysical data for ocean sediments and hard rocks. Janus has been used to collect data since Leg 171A (January 1997), and data collected prior to Leg 171A are being added to Janus as time permits (see Database Overview for available data). Data are available to everyone over the web.
MioMap - Miocene Mammal Mapping Project
Key Contact: Anthony Barnosky barnosky@berkeley.edu
MioMap intergrates a Geographic Information System (GIS) with a detailed Mioclene database (Arikareean through Hemphillian land-mammal ages) to provide comprehensive spatial and temporal analysis of Miocene mammal taxa, localities and associated data for the Western United States.
Neotoma - Neotoma Paleoecology Database
Key Contact: Eric Grimm (grimm@museum.state.il.us)
Neotoma is a multiproxy database that includes fossil data for the past 5 million years, the time during which modern species, including humans, and modern ecosystems appeared. The initial database aggregates the Global Pollen Database, FAUNMAP, the North American Plant Macrofossil Database, and a fossil beetle database into a single integrated database. These databases have become critical infrastructure for paleobiological research. They are used for almost every aspect of this research--from broad-scale synoptic studies to understanding the context of local site studies to using the database as a taxonomic standard. They are also widely used as teaching tools. Their integration facilitates new lines of research and even more use of these data.
Paleobiology Database -
www.paleodb.org
Key Contact: John Alroy (alroy@nceas.ucsb.edu)
The Paleobiology Database is an international scientific organization run by paleontological researchers from many institutions. The database brings together taxonomic and distributional information about the entire fossil record of plants and animals with the goal to educate the public, summarize the literature for professionals, and foster statistical analyses of mass extinctions and other aspects of biodiversity. Data about fossil plants and animals include systematic classifications, ecological categories, measurements, age ranges, spatial distributions, and digital images. Major data sets comprise Online Systematics Archives. You can also view the classification of everything in a group all at once.
PALEOMAP - PALEOMAP Project
Key Contact: Chris Scotese info@scotese.com
The goal of the PALEOMAP Project is to illustrate the plate tectonic development of the ocean basins and continents, as well as the changing distribution of land and sea during the past 1100 million years. The site provides full-color paleogeographic maps that track Earth History, 3D moveable paleoglobes and paleogeographic animations for selected time intervals, and much more, along with software and data suitable for research and teaching.
PaleoPortal - Paleontology Portal
Key Contact: Judy Scotchmoor jscotch@berkeley.edu
This site is a resource for anyone interested in paleontology, from the professional in the lab to the interested amateur scouting for fossils to the student in any classroom. The site has gathered many different resources into this single entry "portal" to paleontological information on the Internet. Images and links that you see as you browse through the site have been reviewed and selected for quality by one or more members of the Editorial Board, following the guidelines of the established editorial policy. Please use the "add to site" link at the top of the page to contribute images or links for consideration.
Pangaea - Publishing Network for Geoscientific & Environmental Data
www.pangaea.de
Key Contact: Michael Diepenbroek (mdiepenbroek@pangaea.de); Hannes Grobe (hgrobe@pangaea.de)
PANGAEA - Publishing Network for Geoscientific & Environmental Data is an Open Access library aimed at archiving, publishing and distributing georeferenced data from earth system research. Data can be found by using the PANGAEA search engine. or through links on web pages. Most of the data are freely available and can be used by referencing the related publication or the dataset citation. Some data sets from ongoing projects are under moratorium and access may be restricted. The data description (metadata) of all data sets are visible and include the principle investigators (PI) name and email for contact. PANGAEA guarantees long-term availability of its content through a commitment of the operating institutions. Each dataset can be identified, shared, published and cited by using a Digital Object Identifier (DOI). In addition a citation for data collections can be defined on request. Citations are available through the catalog of the German National Library of Science and Technology (TIBORDER). Archiving follows the Recommendations of the Commission on Professional Self Regulation in Science for safeguarding good scientific practice. The system is operated in the sense of the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities which is a follow up to the Budapest Open Access Initiative. The policy of data management and archiving follows the Principles and Responsibilities of ICSU World Data Centers and the OECD Principles and Guidelines for Access to Research Data from Public Funding.
SESAR - System for Earth Sample Registration
www.geosamples.org
Key Contact: Kerstin Lehnert (lehnert@ldeo.columbia.edu)
SESAR is a centralized registry that provides and administers unique identifiers for Geoscience samples - the International Geo Sample Number IGSN. Use of the IGSN prevents ambiguity by systematizing sample designation and ensures that all information associated with a sample is preserved for accessibility on a global scale.
Stratigraphy.Net -
www.stratigraphy.net
Key Contact: Robert Huber (robert.huber@stratigraphy.net); Jens Klump (jens.klump@gfz-potsdam.de)
Stratigraphy.Net aims to provide free and open access to geoscientific information and data with special emphasis on the disciplines of stratigraphy, paleontology and sedimentology. The newly launched version of Stratigraphy.Net hopes to provide access to key stratigraphic data which will help understand the geological history of a region, indeed the Earth. These data include the stratigraphic background information on a certain rock unit, e.g. its age and properties and its position within the hierarchy of stratigraphic units. Stratigraphy is an interdisciplinary approach to geology and includes, for example, detailed information on taxonomy and systematic biology. In addition, as our stratigraphic knowledge evolves, new standard curves are published, and age dates are revised we must up date stratigraphic information and provide mechanisms so that old interpretations be matched to modern stratigraphies. Dedicated databases provide a lot of this information, but to combine all this information, database interoperability is the task ahead.