Intern:Concept/GCSEP

Concept as part of a proposal for the founding of a German Center of Scientific Earth Probing (GCSEP)

Chapter V.1 Technologies/data archiving and information system

In order to ensure sustainable and long-term availability of all data with related meta-information resulting from scientific drilling, an information system will be integral part of the German Center of Scientific Earth Probing (GCSEP). A data management and implementation plan will define the flow from PI to the archive, ending in a publication of the data as intrinsic part of scientific achievements and public outreach. A data policy is set up in agreement with the scientific community and the funding organizations in order to advise responsibilities for quality and handling, availability and distribution. A data curator as the link between science and data library will be responsible for a well established data flow and the harmonization, archiving and proof-read of the data.

In Germany an operational information system is available for all kinds of data resulting from scientific drilling, building on a technology, which has been developed over more than a decade by major earth system research institutions. The system PANGAEA (http://www.pangaea.de) is aimed at archiving, distributing and publishing geo-referenced data related to basic research on the Earth System and is in use by recent international drilling projects (CRP, EPICA, IODP). The system is operated according to the principles of Open (and free) Access as an electronic library, providing long-term reliable access and a proper bibliographic citation of data entities; citations include a persistent identifier (DOI) and are mirrored to library catalogs. A common geological time scale as an integral part of the data model enables the system also to act as a scientific tool for geologists, e.g. to combine individual records from different sites. Scientific data are archived in a consistent format together with meta-information in a relational database and can be retrieved through a search engine, various access clients, and web services. Data are provided in several standard formats following OAI recommendations and ISO/OGC standards and thus can be served through any geoscientific portal, e.g. GeoPortal.Bund. PANGAEA's technical operation is guaranted through long-term commitments by research centers of the Helmholtz Association and of the German Research Foundation.