PETDB- THE INTERACTIVE WEB-BASED PETROLOGICAL DATABASE OF THE OCEAN FLOOR

Over many years, immense efforts have been made to sample and analyze igneous rocks from the ocean floor in order to generate geochemical data that are essential for understanding the generation of ocean crust and for tracing the evolution of the earth’s crust and mantle. The usefulness of these data has been severely restricted because compilation of data from the literature has been a difficult and time-consuming task for individual scientists. With close to one thousand papers and a million analytical values with attendant meta-data, the task is beyond the reach of individuals. PetDB provides the first comprehensive compilation of published geochemical data of ocean floor igneous and metamorphic rocks that can be accessed on-line through an interactive interface. PetDB has accomplished major objectives for quality management of petrological data: (1) Its relational structure accommodates all types of analytical data and a wide range of supplementary data that are indispensable for proper interpretation. The database schema is generally applicable to all kinds of geological materials. (2) The interactive web interface allows users to select and filter data from the database applying criteria such as authors, geographical location, tectonic setting, rock type, or chemical composition, and create customized data sets that can be downloaded together with information on references, petrography, and analytical methods. (3) It contains the complete data set through the year 2000. Further outstanding features are: - PetDB for the first time provides data compilations for individual samples. Analytical values that have been generated at different labs and published in separate references on the same sample can be integrated by means of a unique sample naming protocol. Of course, data can be kept separate at the user’s discretion. - Interactivity with LDEO’s RIDGE Multibeam Synthesis Project database (RYAN, HAXBY, CARBOTTE & O’HARA) allows visualization of locations as well as petrological and geochemical characteristics of samples on bathymetric maps. Development of the database has revealed the critical role of unique sample identifiers – a major hurdle for terrestrial geologists and geochemists. Databases are in a continuous process of evolution and rapidly decay if viewed as static accomplishments.