SUPPORTING FAIR SAMPLES AND DATA: SESAR AND THE EARTHCHEM DATA SYSTEMS

Physical samples and the data generated by their study are fundamental to progress across many Earth science disciplines and, thus, should be FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable) to enable future scientific utility and transparency in research. The ability to find and re-use existing sample-based analyses is dependent both on the use of unique sample identifiers and on the quality and accessibility of sample documentation. The System for Earth Sample Registration (SESAR; www.geosamples.org) aids researchers and sample curators in making sample metadata FAIR, and in obtaining IGSNs (International Geo Sample Numbers) as globally unique and persistent identifiers that resolve to sample metadata. IGSNs are used to unambiguously refer to samples in the literature and in databases, allowing disparate analyses of samples to be discovered more readily and linked to each other. Data syntheses like EarthChem’s PetDB database, which has served as a pivotal source of geochemical data for more than 20 years, would simply not be possible without the use of unique identifiers and without access to key sample metadata. Further encouraging researchers to obtain and use IGSNs will increasingly enhance discovery of distinct, yet complementary, data produced on same or similar samples across an even broader range of resources. This presentation and demonstration will show how SESAR services currently support diverse workflows both for a broad range of researchers and sample types and what plans exist for the future. It will also demonstrate how SESAR supports sample-based data syntheses and repositories, especially those operated by EarthChem (www.earthchem.org).