This grant supports a GEO EarthCube topical workshop with a focus on cyberinfrastructure issues germane to geological dating techniques and their digital publication. The workshop seeks to engage approximately 70 geochronologists and geoscientists with the intent to: 1) develop a set of unifying requirements for the organization of geochronology data; and 2) explore methods for developing and sustaining an interactive community of domain and cyber-scientists to pursue next-generation solutions to the identified challenges. The workshop will include invited talks followed by multiple breakout groups to discuss and produce draft documents focused on: 1) specific scientific challenges and opportunities in Geochronology over the next 5-15 years; 2) identification of the data and cyber-infrastructure obstacles to meeting those challenges; 3) a compilation of known community data and modeling resources; 4) description of data and cyber-capabilities required to meet challenges; and 5) development of ideas for at least two ?proof-of-concept? projects or test cases for scientifically transformative CI activities.
Nothing is more fundamental to understanding Earth history and processes than geochronology and the expense incurred in producing robust and high resolution dates implores NSF to help find a modern digital solution(s) for maintaining the integrity of these data sets and promoting access as broadly as possible in support of the advancement of the geosciences. This workshop will help to address many of the issues that continue to hamper geochonological data curation, digital publication and community access.
Seventy on-site as well as at least eight off-site participants, representing a range of geochronology sub-disciplines and end-users of geochronology data, gathered in Madison, Wisconsin on October 1-3, 2013. This is the first meeting in the U.S. that has brought together such a large spectrum of geochronologists, whose expertise spans from near-modern to early Earth timescales. We discussed the five NSF-prompted workshop goals below from within- as well as across-discipline perspectives. We recognized that the diverse geochronology communities share many common obstacles and needs, and that each sub-discipline is at various stages of envisioning and developing domain-specific organizational tools and cyberinfrastructure that would feed into a wider EarthCube framework. There is also recognition that investment in cyberinfrastructure has the potential to improve access to high-quality dates, models, age calculation tools, and recalculation tools that will benefit geochronologists as well as the many end-users of geochronology data. Grand Challenge: Develop a fully integrated four-dimensional digital earth, of which geochronology provides the crucial fourth dimension, to fully understand dynamic earth system evolution. Outcome 1: Science Drivers The primary scientific driver identified during the workshop if EarthCube were successful would be to understand and test hypotheses about the underlying controls on, and the relationships between, major earth systems. Achievement of this goal will entail establishing: ? a robust, unified chronological framework for all earth history; ? correlation of earth system records across a range of nested spatio-temporal scales; ? causality between forcing, responses and feedbacks, including leads and lags; ? rates of change of fundamental earth system processes. The above provides a general framework for the goals of the geochronologic community within EarthCube. Specific examples of scientific opportunities and challenges facing the geochronologic community over the next 15 years that will lead to resolution of the dynamic interactions among Earth systems include, but are not limited to: ? the construction of a digital absolute geologic time scale used to resolve the times and drivers for biologic extinction as well as the rates of biologic recovery and evolution; ? the pace, magnitude and drivers of climate change through earth history (e.g., the carbon cycle, oxygen, sea level, ocean chemistry); ? addition of a 4th dimension to the construction and evolution of the North American continent, providing knowledge products to be directly integrated with EarthScope data; ? resolving interactions between rates, patterns, and magnitudes of erosion, landscape evolution, and sediment deposition, with climate change and tectonics in deep and more recent time. Outcome 2: Data & Cyberinfrastructure obstacles ? Geochronological data are currently difficult to access, of variable quality, and challenging to compare between labs/methods and with other information; ? Limited standardization of data acquisition, archiving and delivery protocols across the geochronologic community; ? The need to archive legacy data and develop mechanisms for managing the current data explosion, so that new and existing data can be leveraged; ? Domain-specific data architectures are vastly incomplete or absent altogether and require the development and maintenance of software designed for the reduction and archiving of geochronologic data, designed to remain flexible for unanticipated data additions; ? There is a lack of transformative technology for integrating earth system knowledge -- data at present are locked in domain-specific architectures; ? It is difficult to recognize gaps and data deserts in existing datasets, and disconnects between disparate datasets; ? To create geochronology data that is amalgamated into databases directly comparable requires financial support of EARTHTIME-like initiatives for various geochronometers to establish community-wide protocols, and evaluate and improve inter-laboratory comparison; ? It is challenging to develop continuums across human and geologic timescales; ? Educational content for EarthCube users that includes support for preparing the next generation of geochronologists to benefit from EarthCube’s "big data world"; ? A need for visualization tools that make EarthCube accessible to the non-specialist audience (e.g., non-specialist scientists, K-12 teachers, policy makers). Outcome 3: Existing community data and cyber resources Existing community data and cyber resources immediately relevant to the geochronological community, as well as datasets that geochronologists leverage for their larger research endeavors are summarized in an appendix. Outcome 4: Data and cyber-capabilities required ? High priority for Earthcube to help communities develop their own domain-specific data-handling systems, from top-down system design to bottom-up assimilation of existing databases; ? Need for continuity in funding for cyber- and geochronological-infrastructure, including personnel; ? Need to develop expertise, communication and collaboration across a spectrum from cyber-savvy geoscientists to Earth science-dedicated computer scientists -- Marry computer scientists into the Earth science community; ? Need for development and maturation of geochronologic technique-specific to science application-specific data systems.
