ONEGEOLOGY - A DISTRIBUTED MODEL FOR GLOBAL GEOLOGICAL DATA

OneGeology was merely a concept in January 2006. In Brighton, UK, 14 months later 83 representatives from the global geological survey community agreed that it was a concept they would support. In defining a series of basic goals with a target of the 33^rd International Geological Congress in Oslo in August 2008, they turned the concept into a project. Work began almost immediately and by Oslo a truly international team had achieved and even exceeded their goals: they had delivered a web map portal and the protocols, registries and technology to harvest and serve data from around the world; they had made significant amounts of geological map data accessible (in August 2008 25 nations were serving data);. they had exchanged know-how and produced guidance (cookbook) and provided support so that any geological survey could participate and serve their data; finally they had moved forward and raised the profile of a crucial data model and interoperability standard – GeoSciML.

The technology used to achieve OneGeology is not complex, but it in terms of the scale of the deployment it is world leading. In this first phase OneGeology delivered digital geological map data from participating nations using Web Map Services. An increasing number of surveys are now using Web Feature Services. The model OneGeology uses is a distributed, dynamic and sustainable. It leaves the data where it is best looked after and updated; that is with the provider nations. Each survey either registers its web service with the OneGeology Portal or works with a partner survey (a “buddy”) to serve that data. OneGeology technology is compliant with the international Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standards. Geological surveys may use a variety of software (e.g. MapServer) to serve their data. The end-user does not require specialist software, only access to the Internet via a web browser. The Portal displays the map data served by each country and provides users with the ability to zoom, pan, switch map data on and off, change its opacity and even transfer it to Google Earth.

OneGeology’s achievements go beyond informatics. It is contributing to the development of spatial data infrastructure for planning and policy-making. Finally, its global profile presents an opportunity to describe to audiences, who we would usually never reach, why geology is important to society.