GOING LYELL ONE BETTER: USING CYBER CONNECTIONS TO ADVANCE THE GEOSCIENCES

We are at a transforming time in the geosciences. Perhaps not since Charles Lyell published his Principles of Geology more than 150 years ago and presented what was the then revolutionary concept that observed evidence of geologic processes explains the history of the Earth, have we had such a robust opportunity to enhance our science. The advances in computer sciences; the richness of the databases of observed geologic, hydrologic, biologic, and other environmental evidence; the ingenuity of scientific modeling; the visualization of geographic information have literally poised us to transform how we take advantage of the potential uses of geoscience information. The transforming power of geoinformatics is that it makes the science visible. Whether it is dealing with the pressures of urban growth or the catastrophic effects of natural hazards, we can present diverse earth and biological science information to a potentially much broader audience of users. We can put models and data together to gain new knowledge and we can capitalize on the information holdings of one another in new ways. In short, we can integrate our information and realize a new scientific landscape. But that landscape must be carefully constructed. If we are to push out to a waiting audience the information they need, we must first pull our information together in a coherent manner. We need to collectively create an architecture—-a cyberinfrastructure-—that by its interconnections, its interoperability, its integration, provides the means by which new knowledge, new applications, and new usefulness of the geosciences are advanced. We need to accept basic tenets like “collect once, use many” and to promulgate standards and practices that expand the reach of geoscience information. The impact of the geosciences can be fundamentally transformed by the robust and structured integration of geoscience data that will push scientific discovery to new levels of accomplishment and relevance.