AusGeochem: an open platform for geochemical data preservation, dissemination and synthesis

Samuel C. Boone*, Hayden Dalton, Alexander Prent, Fabian Kohlmann, Moritz Theile, Yoann Gréau, Guillaume Florin, Wayne Noble, Sally-Ann Hodgekiss, Bryant Ware, David Phillips, Barry Kohn, Suzanne O'Reilly, Andrew Gleadow, Brent McInnes, Tim Rawling

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    14 Citations (Scopus)
    52 Downloads (Pure)

    Abstract

    To promote a more efficient and transparent geochemistry data ecosystem, a consortium of Australian university research laboratories called the AuScope Geochemistry Network assembled to build a collaborative platform for the express purpose of preserving, disseminating and collating geochronology and isotopic data. In partnership with geoscience-data-solutions company Lithodat Pty Ltd, the open, cloud-based AusGeochem platform (https://ausgeochem.auscope.org.au) was developed to simultaneously serve as a geosample registry, a geochemical data repository and a data analysis tool. Informed by method-specific groups of geochemistry experts and established international data reporting practices, community-agreed database schemas were developed for rock and mineral geosample metadata and secondary ion mass spectrometry U-Pb analysis, with additional models for laser ablation-inductively coupled-mass spectrometry U-Pb and Lu-Hf, Ar-Ar, fission-track and (U-Th-Sm)/He under development. Collectively, the AusGeochem platform provides the geochemistry community with a new, dynamic resource to help facilitate FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) data management, streamline data dissemination and advanced quantitative investigations of Earth system processes. By systematically archiving detailed geochemical (meta-)data in structured schemas, intractably large datasets comprising thousands of analyses produced by numerous laboratories can be readily interrogated in novel and powerful ways. These include rapid derivation of inter-data relationships, facilitating on-the-fly data compilation, analysis and visualisation.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)245-259
    Number of pages15
    JournalGeostandards and Geoanalytical Research
    Volume46
    Issue number2
    Early online date29 Jan 2022
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Jun 2022

    Bibliographical note

    Copyright the Author(s) 2022. Version archived for private and non-commercial use with the permission of the author/s and according to publisher conditions. For further rights please contact the publisher.

    Keywords

    • geochemical data platform
    • geosample registry
    • data repository
    • Big data
    • FAIR data

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