STATE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY DEPLOYMENT OF THE NATIONAL GEOTHERMAL DATA SYSTEM

Addressing scientific solutions to the challenges of energy supply as well as landslides and earthquakes, minerals and mining, water supply and flooding, pollution and erosion, and not least, climate change, is dependent on geological data. Rich environmental data are extensive, but when they are available, they are often exceptionally difficult to discover, exist in different formats and via different services, with different access conditions.

A coalition of State Geological Surveys (via Association of American State Geologists - AASG) is expanding and enhancing the National Geothermal Data System (NGDS) by creating a national, sustainable, distributed, interoperable network of data providers representing all 50 states that will develop, collect, serve, and maintain geothermal-relevant data that operates as an integral compliant component of NGDS. The data exchange mechanism is built on the Geoscience Information Network (GIN) protocols and standards.

Data are exposed from the State Geological Surveys through the NGDS, by digitizing at-risk legacy, geothermal-relevant data (paper records, samples, etc), publishing existing digital data using standard web and data services, and through limited collection of new data in areas lacking critical information.

Goals are to enhance states' abilities to preserve and disseminate geothermal data; facilitate geothermal resource characterization and development efforts; expand the scope of data available to the geothermal community; foster new services and applications built by third-parties to take advantage of the system’s capabilities and content; contribute materially to creation of a national geoinformatics system through implementation and deployment of NGDS; and increase operational support for geoinformatics infrastructure through broader user base.

This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Dept. of Energy, Geothermal Technologies Program under award DE-EE0002850, and the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0753154.