Research Data and Preservation Summit in Phoenix

The ASSIS&T's Research Data and Preservation Summit got underway here in Phoenix an hour ago, in conjunction with a week-long Information Architecture meeting.  There are 100+ attendees from all over the world in the summit and animated discussion started almost immediately.

My sense after just a few minutes is that developments are coming along so fast in so many areas, that this 2-day event is going to be full of revelations and discovery.

AAPG Geoscience Data Preservation Committee

The AAPG Geoscience Data Preservation Committee meets on April 13 at the AAPG Annual Meeting in New Orleans.  The agenda offers a view of what efforts and issues are in play around the country.

Presentations:

John Steinmetz, Director, Indiana Geological Survey - Update on Federal and State Efforts toward Geoscience Data Preservation, including results from AASG Spring Liaison Meeting, summer 2009 Data Preservation Workshop, and 2010 National Geological and Geophysical Data Preservation Program Grants.

David Orchard, ConocoPhillips, Houston, TX – Finding Cores from the Permian Basin – Efforts to Create a Database of all existing Permian Basin Core Material – where it’s housed, accessing the material, etc.

Rod Tillman, Consulting Geologist, Tulsa, OK - Cole Memorial Cross Section Digitization efforts being done cooperatively by Oklahoma Geological Survey, Tulsa Geological Society, Bureau of Land Management and AAPG.

Jim McGhay – Energy Libraries Online, Tulsa, OK –update on the progress of Energy Libraries Online, the non-profit effort of several leading energy information libraries in the Mid-continent region to preserve and develop their collections into a consolidated digital and accessible database

Michael Laine, Curator, Utah Gore Research Center, Salt Lake City, UT - Utah Core Research Center: Adaptation for Survival

Sarah Ramdeen, Florida Department of Environmental Protection - Research on digital curation for the geosciences – update on PhD program research.

Kenneth Papp – Curator, Geologist, Alaska Geologic Materials Center - Data Preservation Efforts at the Alaska Geologic Materials Center

Bill Harrison - Director, Michigan Basin Core Research Laboratory -  Geoscience Data Preservation Efforts in Michigan

Patrick Gooding - Manager, Well Sample and Core Library, Kentucky Geological Survey -  Ongoing Geoscience Data Preservation Efforts in Kentucky.    

Thanks to committee co-chair Bev DeJarnett at the Texas Bur. of Economic Geology for sharing the agenda.              

Exploring the Open Government Datasets

There is a growing list of datasets being posted on the Data.gov website, at the direction of the White House.

I haven't found many primary geology sets but there are sets for hydrology, hazards, geothermal, etc.

137 years of Popular Science now online for free

Popular Science is making all of their archives of articles for the last 137 years, available online.  The older stuff is the most fun.

NRC study underway on USGS spatial data strategy

 The National Research Council is conducting a study ("Spatial Data Enabling USGS Strategic Science in the 21st Century") for the USGS on their science strategy for spatial data.   The committee is still accepting comments at least for the next couple of weeks.

Project Scope:

This study will examine progress made in establishing spatial data infrastructures and the challenges faced by those infrastructures, within the context of the National Spatial Data Infrastructure. The study will examine the role that the USGS can play in continuing to ensure access to high quality geospatial data and support its use in scientific analyses and decision-making through a spatial data infrastructure (SDI) construct.

The committee will undertake three main tasks:

(1) identify existing knowledge and document lessons learned during previous efforts to develop SDIs and their support of scientific endeavors;

(2) develop a vision for optimizing an SDI to organize, integrate, access, and use scientific data; and

(3) create a roadmap to guide the USGS in accomplishing the vision within the scope of the USGS Science Strategy.

Google and NOAA team up to display ocean and climate data

NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research announced that they and Google "have signed a cooperative research and development agreement outlining how they will work together to create state-of-the-art visualizations of scientific data to illustrate how our planet works."

This strikes me as another indication of the convergence towards a common data capabilities in the spatially-based sciences.

The areas that NOAA and Google will cooperate on include:

• Engaging the public in ongoing and historic scientific expeditions including those of the NOAA ship Okeanos Explorer;
• Compiling and improving bathymetric datasets to display in Google Earth and make available for downloading;
• Expanding NOAA efforts to publish oceanographic data, especially data from the NOAA-led Integrated Ocean Observing System;
• Expanding NOAA efforts to publish climate data, especially data from the greenhouse gas monitoring system;
• Increasing the amount of data available for NOAA’s Science on a Sphere, an educational Earth science display system, [http://sos.noaa.gov/] by adapting it to display files in the Keyhole Markup Language, the file format Google Earth and Google Maps use for geographic data; and
• Providing interactive access to marine zoning and regulatory information concerning regions such as continental shelf boundaries and marine protected areas.

OneGeology blog and twitter

Ian Jackson, coordinator of the OneGeology consortium, is now blogging and tweeting.   His blog, OneGeoBlogy, went live last week.

It's immediately obvious how much is happening with OneGeology globally and in Europe.