Geon: Cyberinfrastructure for the GeoSciences

The GEON (GEOscience Network) research project is responding to the pressing need in the geosciencesto interlink and share multidisciplinary data sets to understand the complex dynamics of Earthsystems. To rise to this challenge, we have formed a coalition of IT researchers, representing keytechnology areas, and Earth Science researchers, representing a broad cross-section of Earth Sciencesub-disciplines. The need to manage the vast amounts of Earth science data was recognized throughNSF-sponsored meetings, which gave birth to the Geoinformatics initiative. The creation of GEON willprovide the critical initial infrastructure necessary to facilitate Geoinformatics and other researchinitiatives, such as EarthScope.

Creating the GEON cyberinfrastructure to integrate, analyze, and model 4D data poses fundamental ITresearch challenges due to the extreme heterogeneity of geoscience data formats, storage and computing systems and, most importantly, the ubiquity of "hidden semantics" and differing conventions, terminologies, and ontological frameworks across disciplines. GEON IT research focuses on modeling, indexing, semantic mediation, and visualization of multi-scale 4D data, and creation of a prototype GEONgrid, to provide the geoscience community an IT head start in facing the research challenges posed by understanding the complex dynamics of Earth systems. An important contribution will be embarking on the definition of a Unified Geosciences Language System (UGLS), to enable semantic interoperability. The GEONgrid leverages experience gained in the National Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure (NPACI) program, and the TeraGrid Distributed Terascale Facility. We will create a portal to provide access to the GEON environment, which will include advanced query interfaces to distributed, semantically-integrated databases, Web-enabled access to shared tools, and seamless access to distributed computational, storage, and visualization resources and data archives.

Two testbed regions, the mid-Atlantic and the Rocky Mountains, have been identified to define theGEON geoscience challenges, though the system will be able to accommodate national and internationalresearch activities. These testbed regions were selected due to the variety of geological issuesembodied within them requiring interlinking of multiple disciplinary databases and also because theyare areas of expertise for the GEON geoscience research team. The results of GEON research willsignificantly impact large multi-scale geoscience research programs such as Earthscope, as well asindividuals and smaller groups of researchers, thereby leading to an intellectual transformation ofthe entire science. Recognizing this potential, the U.S.Geological Survey has joined as a majorpartner and has made creation of key GEON databases a priority effort over the next several years.Via DLESE, GEON will become an important resource for sharing knowledge about the Earth for a varietyof audiences, including K-12 students and teachers.

Many disciplinary geoscience database projects are already underway, indicating the readiness of thecommunity to participate in such a national-scale effort. As NSF and other agencies begin to investin these database creation efforts, a need for a cyberinfrastructure that will enable integration ofthese databases becomes imminent. Various GEON-like grid efforts, such as GriPhyN, NEESGrid, and BIRN, have all indicated the readiness of the IT community to provide the necessary interoperableinfrastructure, and testify to the value of integration of IT with major science and educationinitiatives. It is now the opportune moment to start the GEON program, to herald the geosciencesinto the era of Geoinformatics and accelerate geoscience research in a timely manner. In sum, GEONis an IT-based Geoscience revolution that will play a critical role in a more holistic understandingof the dynamics of Earth systems. It will also create new scientific paradigms and renew theexcitement in the community of the post-plate tectonics era.

CHRONOS Portal Project

CHRONOS is working with the Earth science community to develop a dynamic, interactive and time-calibrated network of databases and visualization and analytical methodologies for sedimentary geology and paleobiology. The CHRONOS System provides a platform for modern, innovative Earth history research, hosts and develops educational resources, and gives access to the general public to new knowledge of Earth science facts and issues.

Please visit us at http://portal.chronos.org or http://www.chronos.org