Event

The EVENT (synonymes site, station) includes metadata required to define an event of sampling or measurement. If data are georeferenced, event label and latitude/longitude are mandatory. If data are not georeferenced (e.g., in case of laboratory experiments or global model simulations), the definition of an event is not required. Information about the EVENT appears in the metaheader of the data set.



What is an EVENT?
EVENT is a rather generic term, depending on the type of data it can refer to (for example):
 * site (sampling / measurement site)
 * station (during a cruise, expedition, filed campaign)
 * deployment of a sampling device / sensor
 * sampling / measurement along a transect / profile
 * sampling / observation time series
 * time and space limited survey
 * mapping
 * mooring
 * multiple investigation at a single site
 * field experiment
 * remote sensing

Basic information about EVENT

 * Event Label is the name of a sampling/measuring event. The label must be unique and does not contain blanks. This can be ensured by combining the station numbers with the campaign label, using an underline to join (e.g. Taymyr97_3). Devices or projects should not be replicated in the label to avoid redundancies.
 * Optional label may be used, if the same station has different labels (see Event label problem).
 * Device type is an automatic entry used to group devices.
 * Device is a tool, gear or method used to take a sample or to measure something.
 * Latitude is mandatory for georeferenced data and given in decimal degree (positive for North, negative for South)
 * Longitude ditto (positive for East, negative for West)
 * Elevation [m] is given relative to sea level: positive above sea level, negative below sea level (=water depth, e.g. sediment core at sea bottom).
 * Date/Time of event execution must be given in ISO-format: YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss; date only is allowed.
 * in case an event is a profile with start and an end point, all fields are repeated to describe the second point with a '2' added to the corresponding field name.
 * Project, Campaign are relational to the corresponding projects and campaigns.
 * Location is geographical location (e.g., North Sea; Espoo, Finland).
 * Comment may be used to add free text which should be closely event specific (no limit of characters).
 * Keywords can be used to define e.g. specific groups of event.
 * URI link to a more detailed description of an event, e.g. on a external web page or a document.

Further information about EVENT

 * Additional attributes give the possibility to add more sampling information.
 * Penetration maximum coring depth (in meter).
 * Recovery gives the length of the core (in meter).
 * Lake water depth gives the water depth at sampling position in lakes (in meter).
 * Mesh size gives the mesh size of net devices.

How to provide EVENT information during data submission?
For georeferenced data, detailed EVENT information is crucial.


 * Does the EVENT already exist in PANGAEA?
 * This is often the case in case of international expeditions (IODP/ ODP) or cruises organized by PANGAEA host institutes (MARUM, AWI).
 * Under Expeditions at PANGAEA webpage the Station lists are provided as part of Cruise inventory and cruise data for the German research vessels.
 * You can search for EVENT at PANGAEA webpage.
 * If the EVENT already exist in PANGAEA, use the same EVENT label for your data.
 * If the EVENT was not found in PANGAEA, please provide as much basic and further information, as available.
 * If the provided EVENT information is unlcear or not sufficient, the curator will contact you with specific information request.

EVENT nomenclature
There is a great risk of confusion with event labels. The event labels published in the expedition report should be exactly those that appear in a publication and in the archived data sets. In some cases, an additional labeling of events can not be avoided; in this Optional label can be used. In the final data set, it will appear behind the event label in parenthesis (example with 3 labels ).

Three different systems exist for labeling events during expeditions:
 * 1) ship related (e.g. Vema, Polarstern)
 * 2) institution related (e.g. GIK..., GeoB...)
 * 3) free format

As a well defined example, the station labeling system of Polarstern is described as:
 * Station labels start with PS as a reference to the ship.
 * Each expedition is numbered starting with 1 and written with a leading zero; e.g. PS07 is the seventh expedition.
 * Station numbers start with 1 on each new expedition and are numbered throughout, independent from the legs, leading zeros to fill a three digit number; e.g. PS07/025 is the 25th station during the 7th expedition.
 * During a station, several devices may be used (events), those are identified by an increasing number added with a hyphen, e.g. a complete event label would be PS07/025-3 labeling the third device on the 25th station during the 7th expedition.
 * It is a Pangaea convention that measurements along the track are related to an event label consisting of the leg number and the extension *-track, e.g. PS07/1-track.

Existing EVENTs

 * List of existing Events for German research vessels can be found at PANGAEA Expeditions page: select vessel and available station lists can be found in the table sorted by expeditions.
 * All datasets related to a specific Event can be searched using a term: "event:label:EventLabel", e.g. event:label:GeoB10008-4 for a sediment core GeoB10008-4.
 * In a dataset metaheader, other datasets related to an Event can be found by clicking at a magnifying glass icon after Event label.