| Abstract | Geo-Seas will develop an infrastructure of 26 marine geological and geophysical data centres, located in 17 European maritime countries. European researchers will be able to locate and access pan-European, harmonised and federated marine geological and geophysical datasets and data products held by the data centres through a single common data portal. The new infrastructure will be promoted to research communities, and new data products and services will be developed following consultations on research requirements. Geo-Seas will adopt and adapt the existing SeaDataNet research infrastructure to handle marine geological and geophysical data, data products and services, creating a joint infrastructure covering both oceanographic and marine geoscientific data. Common data standards and exchange formats will be agreed and implemented across the data centres. Other geological and geophysical organisations will be encouraged to adopt the Geo-Seas protocols, standards and tools.
Geo-Seas will contribute to e-Infrastructure development in the areas of Scientific Data (coherent management and access to data) and Standards (data management, metadata, formats, delivery). It will expand the SeaDataNet infrastructure to include marine geological and geophysical data held by the Geo-Seas partners. A catalogue of data, data products and services available from the Geo-Seas data centres will be published and maintained. Quality standards and data exchange/delivery formats will be harmonised across the partners. The project will facilitate access to federated, marine geological and geophysical datasets and deliver the data via the internet. Legacy reflection seismic records will be scanned and vectorised so that the data can be delivered digitally. New data products and services will be developed following consultations with user communities. Standard arrangements will be developed for use of the data and data products. Geo-Seas will promote the infrastructure and its services to users and other relevant organisations to encourage them to adopt the protocols, standards and tools. It will also formulate, determine, and facilitate consolidation and longer-term exploitation of the Geo-Seas infrastructure beyond the lifetime of the project.
The Geo-Seas data, data products and services will be used by the following sectors: environmental research and monitoring; academic research; government; national and regional agencies; dredging; marine hydrocarbons; beach nourishment; land reclamation; sustainable energy; civil engineering (pipelines, offshore construction, aggregates); communications (submarine cables); shipping; fisheries; tourism; health.
The aims of Geo-Seas are aligned with European directives and recent large-scale framework programmes on global and European scales (GEOSS and GMES, EDMODNET and INSPIRE). The project will also take into account the experience and developments arising from international geological projects, such as, OneGeology and GeoSciML. Many of the Geo-Seas partners are also partners in these international projects. Geo-Seas will adopt existing international data management and data exchange standards, and will contribute to the development of new international standards. The EuroGeoSurveys network of organisations and its website will be used to reach out to the geosciences user community and to other marine organisations, throughout Europe and the rest of the world.
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