Intellectual Merit: This research supports the continued operation and further development of PetDB, the Petrological Database of the Ocean Floor. PetDB is a highly successful digital data collection that archives, manages, and makes accessible online an integrated set of geochemical and petrological data for ocean floor igneous and metamorphic rocks with the objective to maximize the long-term utility of these data for the widest range of scientific problems. PetDB has revolutionized data access for the igneous geochemistry community and dramatically advanced the utility of geochemical data to the benefit of researchers and educators. The primary objectives of the project are to continue serving the geoscience community the high-quality petrological dataset of ocean floor rocks; enhance the utility of the PetDB data system to the community by adding new content and aligning PetDB's system architecture with that of the other systems in the Geoinformatics for Geochemistry (GfG) program at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory to maximize the efficiency of its operation, including management, development, and maintenance tasks.
Broader Impacts: PetDB provides access to globally accessible data compilations for broad audiences, supporting research and education in many fields of the Earth and Ocean Sciences. The database not only serves as the official archive of marine igneous petrology data for NSF, it has also been used extensively in undergraduate and graduate teaching, thereby advancing the use of geochemical data in Geoscience education, and has contributed significantly to the development of Geoinformatics through its achievements and experiences, partnerships and collaboration.
