The goal of this project is to create a database for deep-time paleoclimate research utilizing the PaleoStrat engine (www.paleostrat.org). PaleoStrat, like all geoinformatics facilities, supports science, helps to build science research communities, and helps to insure that the results of that research are as widely available as possible. Initial efforts regarding paleoclimate data will focus on the Carboniferous-Permian, building on the research strengths of the PIs and associated national and international colleagues and from the support of key cooperating groups: GeoSystems (a community based effort aimed at examining Earth's climate and linked systems throughout geologic time); International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) of the international Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS); the ICS subcommissions on Carboniferous and Permian stratigraphy; and a newly formed working group on paleoclimate of the International Congress on the Carboniferous and Permian (ICCP). The interest of the research community and these groups stems from the critical importance of the Late Paleozoic Gondwana ice age to understanding Earth's climate system.
PaleoStrat is designed as an infrastructure platform for Earth Science researchers and teachers and serves the community by enhancing the research and education process ? it supports science and education and does not itself do science. PaleoStrat offers students the opportunity of exploring real stratigraphic-based data as a fundamental learning tool. Teaching modules are being developed by an internal team at the Department of Geosciences at Boise State University. The results of these efforts will be available on the PaleoStrat web site and disseminated at various professional meetings.
Major research and education activities for the project focused on the development of a comprehensive understanding of how to create and maintain online, digital information system for the full breadth of sedimentary geology and related topical and field and associated laboratory data. A major conclusion is that this is a very difficult, muti-faceted issue that revolves less around the technologies (including standards) than it does on the human-based, social-cultural challenges. Hosted at Boise State University, but in partnership with many other people and projects, GeoStrat (formerly named "PaleoStrat") is designed to provide: 1) a database that includes all relevant data and metadata types, 2) various user-friendly ways to capture these data, 3) a secure area for users and projects to store unpublished data, 4) simple, but powerful ways for the user to find the information they need, 5) access to the analytical and assessment tools necessary to address thematic science questions, and 6) a convenient mechanism for individual users to extract raw and synthesized data. No other such comprehensive, integrated data system exists for the open access to federally-sponsored sedimentary geology research data. Another major conclusion is that no data system can run as an isolated entity. We have and will continue to work to insure that GeoStrat is part of a larger national and international system that provides the interoperability, technologies, data, and tools needed by the Earth science research community. This information system supports research and education in the broad categories of sedimentary geology and geothermal energy, but these data are also critical for many allied studies in structure, tectonics, paleoclimate, and other issues dealing with the systematics of Earth processes. We are fully engaged in the NSF EarthCube initiative and are an active partner of the "Digital Crust" collaboration that we have helped initiate among several existing NSF-funded data sites. Importantly, our interactions through EarthCube and elsewhere have also clearly demonstrated that we (the broader community) will not be able to build a viable, sustainable, web-based data system if everyone is forced to follow one technical pathway. Standards are necessary, but flexibility is of paramount importance not only for the technical operation of each database in a linked, web-based system, but to get the active participation of the investigators doing geoscience and engineering research. There continue to be many barriers to wider use of any geoinformatics system. These barriers include: ease of use, the extent of its topical coverage (data it can handle), availability of visualization and analytical tools for working with data, security of data prior to publication, attribution of data to the person who generated them, support for publication. However, the main barrier remains geoscience user community acceptance of the need for geoinformatics in general, in particular the cost of development and running of such systems. There has, since the inception of the geoinformatics/cyberinfrastructure concepts, this push-pull reaction, where the need may be acknowledged but the cost and methods not fully understood or appreciated. Finally, GeoStrat has the potential, when it is fully implemented to help transform the way we do our Earth Science research by enabling the researchers to manage their field- and lab-based data as they are generated, providing value-added tools and communication and publication outlets to incentivize this process. In general this should help to truly the productivity of the researchers and increase the impact of the science to the non-geoscience community. In addition, GeoStrat has strong education applications, in particular for both undergraduate and graduate education. GeoStrat's impact includes not only supporting student thesis research but as a tool for "classroom" work where students can mix their data with "real" research data and engaged in true research-level experiences. Also, the Project concept includes the notion of a collaboratory, where researchers, and students can collaborate on a larger project. A pilot project for this is underway funded by NSF's Course, Curriculum, and Laboratory Improvement (CCLI) program, with Karin Block of City College of New York as the PI and the GeoStrat team as co-PI's. The project is titled: " The Geoscience Student Data Network: a Cyberinfrastructure-based Approach for Collaborative Classroom-, Field-, and Laboratory-based Undergraduate Education." Students from CCNY and Boise State will be collaborating through both online (webinar) classrooms and through common research utilizing the Desktop and the GeoStrat system, and in particular the Project modules. Note: this grant does not provide any development funding for GeoStrat.
