This workshop is to bring together the Rock Mechanics and COMPRESS Mineral Physics communities to gather requirements for the NSF-funded EarthCube initiative whose goal is to design and implement a new data and knowledge management system for the geosciences. The workshop will assemble a group of about 70 experts in rock deformation and high-pressure mineral physics to discuss their cyberinfrastructure needs in terms of data, modeling, and visualization. Goals will be to surface cyberinfrastructure needs that are presently holding these communities back and to enable their ability to address fault-slip behaviors, brittle-ductile transitions in lithologic materials, scientific drilling, deformation processes in subduction zones, and the physical, chemical, and electronic properties of geologic materials in the deep Earth. The two and a half day workshop will be held in Alexandria, Virginia in early November of 2013. A catalyzing issue of the workshop concerns the nature and reporting of experimental and observational data. Addressing these cyberinfrastructure needs represents a fundamental challenge to digital representation/integration and allowance of broad public access to data from this field that can be aided by involvement with EarthCube. This project is important for both the scientific and cyberinfrastructure development of the geosciences. Future progress of the geosciences will be based on the integration of rich and diverse datasets. This workshop will identify the needs of one of the most important and societally relevant groups in Earth Science. There will be a vast array of intellectually challenging tasks in describing and integrating data across a spectrum of scales as well as granularity that will be addressed at the workshop. Broader impacts of the work include provisions for improving public access to data from these fields, especially for those interested in studying earthquakes or assessing and manageing their impacts. it also builds infrastructure for science in terms of helping create more effective and interoperable data and modeling frameworks. The workshop will also emphasize the inclusion of early career researchers, thus ensuring the needs are met of the next generation of rock deformation professionals.
