This Record describes the scope of the Great Artesian Basin (GAB) Automatic Data Processing System and outlines Stage 1(Data Transcription), and describes Stage 2, the checking of coded data. The subject of this record is the permanent storage, updating, and retrieval for processing of the data passed through Stages 1 and 2. The system described was developed for application to drill stem test (DST; Formation Test) data by G.E. Seidel (BMR) and then extended to suit the general GAB data by G. Krebs (BRGM).

It is impractical for a single agency in Australia to hold responsibility for maintaining a national landslide database. Geoscience Australia has successfully demonstrated the benefits of adopting information management strategies as one solution in bringing local, regional and national scale landslide data together. In the first time that networked service oriented interoperability has been applied to a natural hazards domain, Australia now has an up-to-date central landslide database that makes full use of diverse data across three levels of government . The approach is centred upon a 'common data model' that addresses aspects of landslides captured by different agencies. The methodology brings four distinct components together: a landslide application schema; a landslide domain model; web service implementations and a user interface. Sharing and exchanging data more efficiently through an interoperable approach ensures that full value is made of available information, and that responsibility for collecting and maintaining this data is shared across all agencies. Specific-purpose data not only continues to serve the needs of individual database custodians, but also now serves a broader need. Such a system establishes the foundation for a very powerful and coordinated information resource in Australia through its ability to collate and characterise large volumes of information, and provides a suitable basis for greater investment in data collection. At a minimum the pilot project provides Australia with a framework for a centralised national landslide inventory, which can connect other available landslide databases. There is also considerable capacity for this approach to provide State Governments with a simple way to compile and maintain their own state-wide databases, and to extend the approach across other natural hazard databases and integrate data from other domains.

Geoscience data standards as a field of research may come as a surprise to many geoscientists, who probably think of it as a dull peripheral issue, of little relevance to their domain. However, the subject is gaining rapidly in importance as the information revolution begins to take hold, as ultimately billions of dollars worth of information are at stake. In this article we take a look at what has happened recently in this field, where we think it is heading, and AGSO's role in national geoscience standards.

part-page article on stratigraphic issues

Legacy product - no abstract available

Legacy product - no abstract available

We propose an automated capture system that follows the fundamental scientific methodology. It starts with the instrument that captures the data, uses web services to make standardised data reduction programs more widely accessible, and finally uses internationally agreed data transfer standards to make geochemical data seamlessly accessible online from a series of internationally distributed certified repositories. The Australian National Data Service (http://www.ands.org.au/) is funding a range of data capture solutions to ensure that the data creation and data capture phases of research are fully integrated to enable effective ingestion into research data and metadata stores at the institution or elsewhere. They are developing a national discovery service that enables access to data in institutional stores with rich context. No data is stored in this system, only metadata with pointers back to the original data. This enables researchers to keep their own data but also enables access to many repositories at once. Such a system will require standardisation at all phases of the process of analytical geochemistry. The geochemistry community needs to work together to develop standards for attributes as the data are collected from the instrument, to develop more standardised processing of the raw data and to agree on what is required for publishing. An online-collaborative workspace such as this would be ideal for geochemical data and the provision of standardised, open source software would greatly enhance the persistence of individual geochemistry data collections and facilitate reuse and repurposing. This conforms to the guidelines from Geoinformatics for Geochemistry (http://www.geoinfogeochem.org/) which requires metadata on how the samples were analysed.

The International Geo-Sample Number (IGSN) provides a globally unique identifier for physical samples used to generate analytical data. This unique identifier provides the ability to link each physical sample to any analytical data undertaken on that sample, as well as to any publications derived from any data derived on the sample. IGSN is particularly important for geochemical and geochronological data, where numerous analytical techniques can be undertaken at multiple analytical facilities not only on the parent rock sample itself, but also on derived sample splits and mineral separates. Australia now has three agencies implementing IGSN: Geoscience Australia, CSIRO and Curtin University. All three have now combined into a single project, funded by the Australian Research Data Services program, to better coordinate the implementation of IGSN in Australia, in particular how these agencies allocate IGSN identifiers. The project will register samples from pilot applications in each agency including the CSIRO National Collection of Mineral Spectra database, the Geoscience Australia sample collection, and the Digital Mineral Library of the John De Laeter Centre for Isotope Research at Curtin University. These local agency catalogues will then be aggregated into an Australian portal, which will ultimately be expanded for all geoscience specimens. The development of this portal will also involve developing a common core metadata schema for the description of Australian geoscience specimens, as well as formulating agreed governance models for registering Australian samples. These developments aim to enable a common approach across Australian academic, research organisations and government agencies for the unique identification of geoscience specimens and any analytical data and/or publications derived from them. The emerging pattern of governance and technical collaboration established in Australia may also serve as a blueprint for similar collaborations internationally.

Geochronology is the vital fourth dimension for geological knowledge. It provides the temporal framework for understanding and modelling geological processes and rates of change. Incorporating geochronological 'observations and measurements' into interoperable geological data systems is thus a critical pursuit. - Although there are several resources for storing and accessing geochronological data, there is no standard format for exchanging such data among users. Current systems are a mixture of comma-delimited text files, Excel spreadsheets and PDFs that assume prior specialist knowledge and frequently force the user to laboriously - and potentially erroneously - extract the required data manually. - Geoscience Australia and partners are developing a standard data exchange format for geochronological data ('geochronML') within the broader framework of Observations and Measurements and GeoSciML that are an important facet of emerging international geoscience data format standards. - Geochronology analytical processes and resulting data present some challenging issues as a rock "age" is typically not a direct measurement, but rather the interpretation of a statistical amalgam of several measurements chosen with the aid of prior geological knowledge and analytical metadata. The level at which these data need to be exposed to a user varies greatly, even to the same user over the course of a project. GeochronML is also attempting to provide a generic pattern that will support as wide as range of radioisotopic systems as possible. This presentation will discuss developments at Geoscience Australia and the opportunities for collaboration.

Fire-Note is a 6000+ circulation bulletin of the Aust. Fire and Emergency Service Australia Council (AFAC). This Fire-Note introduces GA's NEXIS (National EXposure Information System) to the fire and emergency services community.