A UNIFIED CHRONOSTRATIGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEM – BUILDING AN IMPLEMENTATION STRUCTURE

A sound organizational structure and plan is critical for the development of a community-wide Geoinformatics effort. Central to this structure is appropriate definition of the science needs, community requirements for accession of data and extraction of data and information. The greatest risk with major initiatives with a large technology component is allowing the technology issues drive the formation and management of the system and not the desired applications. The American Geological Institute hosted a workshop bringing together leaders in chronostratigraphy who are building specific databases related to geologic time. The workshop aims to define a working structure of science needs, operational organization, intellectual right issues, and implementation strategies, as well a tutorial on the experiences of the bioinformatics community to bring these disparate efforts together towards a unified chronostratigraphic information system. By focusing on the broader vision of a Geoinformatics effort, it is hoped that the chronostratigraphic community can begin to implement a system addressing the National Science Foundation’s Cybermatics vision, and to provide a test case for the geoscience community on implementing a Geoinformatics node.