Our Treasures Need No Longer be Buried: Advancing Physical Samples from Personal Items to Globally Shared First Class Objects of International Research.
Abstract
Physical samples have been a critical component of Earth, environmental and planetary science research since the beginning of scientific investigations . Millions of samples have been acquired from all over the globe and beyond.
Traditionally, research has seen these samples described, locally processed and then typically stored within individual institutions. Over the last centuries, most universities and government agencies valued their collections and locally curated and catalogued them. In recent decades, as costs rose administrators argued that preservation of samples had become too expensive and that samples could be recollected when required. Samples were no longer valued and became buried in desk drawers, sheds or basements, where they remained unknown and inaccessible, supporting neither the transparency of current research nor future science. In many cases, sample sites can no longer be accessed (e.g. mine sites) or were too expensive to recollect (e.g. lunar samples, remote locations). As time progressed, single institutions no longer had full suites of analytical instruments: samples were shipped around the globe for analysis and reuse by other research communities. However, unless the samples were uniquely identified, confusion reigned over exactly which sample was analysed, by whom and when, and it was often not known which institution the samples came from nor who had originally collected them. A solution lies in the International Geo Sample Number (IGSN), which provides a globally unique identifier for physical samples. It allows a researcher to establish links between samples (or the digital representation of them), data acquired on these samples, and any publications that result from these data. It enables any researcher, institution or funder that supported the collection of the sample to be acknowledged and credited, and can demonstrate value for the contribution that a particular sample has made to scientific research. More importantly, it can ensure that credit is given not only for the collection of the samples but also for the efforts and expertise invested by institutions into sharing them and preserving them for reuse in future science. Through unique identifiers samples will once again become treasures of value to science and society and elevated to be first-class objects of research.- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019AGUFM.U12B..02W
- Keywords:
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- 0486 Soils/pedology;
- BIOGEOSCIENCES;
- 9820 Techniques applicable in three or more fields;
- GENERAL OR MISCELLANEOUS;
- 1912 Data management;
- preservation;
- rescue;
- INFORMATICS;
- 6620 Science policy;
- PUBLIC ISSUES