Building the EarthChem System for Advanced Data Management in Igneous Geochemistry

Several mature databases of geochemical analyses for igneous rocks are now available over the Internet. The existence of these databases has revolutionized access to data for researchers and students allowing them to extract data sets customized to their specific problem from global data compilations with their desktop computer within a few minutes. Three of the database efforts - PetDB, GEOROC, and NAVDAT - have initiated a collaborative effort called EarthChem to create better and more advanced and integrated data management for igneous geochemistry. The EarthChem web site (http://www.earthchem.org/) serves as a portal to the three databases and information related to EarthChem activities. EarthChem participants agreed to establish a dialog to minimize duplication of effort and share useful tools and approaches. To initiate this dialog, a workshop was run by EarthChem in October, 2003 to discuss cyberinfrastructure needs in igneous geochemistry (workshop report available at the EarthChem site). EarthChem ran an information booth with database and visualization demonstrations at the Fall 2003 AGU meeting (and will have one in 2004) and participated in the May 2003 GERM meeting in Lyon, France where we provided the newly established Publishers' Round Table a list of minimum standards of data reporting to ease the assimilation of data into the databases. Aspects of these suggestions already have been incorporated into new data policies at Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta and Chemical Geology (Goldstein et al. 2004), and are under study by the Geological Society of America. EarthChem presented its objectives and activities to the Solid Earth Sciences community at the Annual GSA Meeting 2003 (Lehnert et al, 2003). Future plans for EarthChem include expanding the types and amounts of data available from a single portal, giving researchers, faculty, students, and the general public the ability to search, visualize, and download geochemical and geochronological data for a wide variety of rock types of global distribution. We also hope to implement more mapping and query functions to open the application of these data across the spectrum of geoscientists. Lastly, we want to facilitate data submission and data entry in anticipation of incorporating more data directly from publishers and from a broader cross section of researchers. The building of interfaces for the transfer of raw and reduced data will allow data to be archived, and most importantly accessed, in a manner that will facilitate the use of geochemical data to address a wide variety of problems in the solid earth sciences.