The Deep Carbon Observatory: The Carnegie Institution for Science as a Global Center for Collaborative and Interdisciplinary Research
Abstract
The Deep Carbon Observatory (DCO) is a ten-year research program investigating the quantities, movements, forms, and origins of carbon in Earth. More than 90% of Earth's carbon may reside in the planet's deep interior, and DCO's overarching mission is to understand Earth's carbon from crust to core, including the deep carbon cycle. To pursue this multidisciplinary study of the deep carbon cycle, DCO connects more than 1,000 scientists worldwide, organized into four Science Communities: Extreme Physics and Chemistry, Reservoirs and Fluxes, Deep Energy, and Deep Life. DCO also emphasizes four crosscutting activities that bridge community boundaries: data science, instrumentation, field studies, and modeling and visualization. No less important than its scientific advances, DCO has built an enduring legacy in its diverse, dynamic, and interactive community of interdisciplinary scientists in more than 50 countries. DCO's community building and management innovations are keys to its scientific success. These fundamental advances in the study of deep carbon demonstrate that DCO is an effective model for tackling large-scale, interdisciplinary science questions. The Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, DC hosts the Secretariat or headquarters of the geographically distributed DCO Science Network. For more than 100 years, the Carnegie Institution for Science has had a tradition of flexibility and independence to pursue science in an entrepreneurial, risk-taking spirit—making it an ideal place to serve as a global center for DCO's collaborative and interdisciplinary research. In addition to the Carnegie Institution for Science, the clustering of leading scientific institutions in the Washington DC region has contributed significantly to the success of the Deep Carbon Observatory, which has benefited from close proximity to academic institutions as well as national and international governmental and nongovernmental organizations.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018AGUFM.U43A..03S
- Keywords:
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- 0815 Informal education;
- EDUCATIONDE: 3699 General or miscellaneous;
- MINERALOGY AND PETROLOGYDE: 6319 Institutions;
- POLICY SCIENCESDE: 6620 Science policy;
- PUBLIC ISSUES