Collaborative Research: EarthCube Capabilities: Repurposing FAIR-Compliant Earth Science Data Repositories

There is a noticeable sparsity of data on the internet that can characterized as being easily findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR). This project seeks to leverage reusable components developed for the Magnetics Information Consortium (MagIC) that follow the above FAIR data principles and that are repurposed in the Framework for Integrated Earth Science and Technology Applications (FIESTA).

Using this new FIESTA technology, we will build two new online data repositories: (1) KARAR: hosting analytical data and geological age information collected using the K/Ar and 40Ar/39Ar techniques for the age dating of rocks and minerals; and (2) GCPDR: hosting multi-sensor data collected at close intervals in sediment/rock cores that provide information on the physical and magnetic properties of sediments and rocks. Information to be drawn from the KARAR serves a critical need for almost every geoscientist enabling them to discover and assess the quality of the best and most current geochronological information from a variety of different methods and sources.

Information in the GCPDR provides yet another domain of researchers with access to basic physical information (e.g. density, color spectra, seismic velocity) collected in tens of thousands sediment and rock cores held in national and international core repositories, which provides scientists with inimitable “time-stamped” records on ocean chemistry, geohazards, environmental tipping points, climate change, extinctions, Earth’s magnetic field behavior, global elemental cycles, and more.

The containerized FIESTA approach is designed to be readily adopted by a broad range of disciplines and, by hosting FIESTA at the EarthRef.org cyberinfrastructure, this will remove a significant set of hurdles in developing and managing a long-term FAIR data repository for these scientists. The two new FIESTA data repositories will also lead to the development of improved education in data mining tools and the use of cyberinfrastructure by exposing data in standardized easy-to-use formats, including standards developed in EarthCube, and making data available on GitHub and EarthRef.org’s JupyterHub.

Finally, the standardization of datasets will enhance capabilities for interdisciplinary geoscience research as it lowers the hurdles to linking data across different fields and finding new applications to help solve persistently challenging scientific integration problems.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.