Projects

Nowadays, samples retrieved in scientific drilling programs are usually handled, registered, and curated according to internationally established guidelines. This advance in data management emerged from several constraints such as the uniqueness of most drill specimens, the high costs for their acquisition and storage, and by international collaboration including many individual sample requests over long time periods even after project termination. For different types of samples such as soft sediment cores, hard rock samples or glacial ice cores, different sample protocols, data banks and data retrieval portals have been developed over the past decades.

Therefore, GESEP has been started the creation of a new continental scientific drill core repository together with an integrated data management and retrieval system. The repository is located at the MARUM, Bremen University for cores kept at 4° C and at the German Geological Survey in Berlin-Spandau for samples stored at room conditions.
The new data entry and management system is being realized in a two step process.
 

1. A unified curation system with underlying relational data bank is set up based on the Drilling Information System used during field campaigns of the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program, ICDP. This is used to store sample information regarding its location, description, data, analyses and all metadata.
2. A Web-Portal will be built up to allow for a user friendly access to data. This will include data for samples physically present in the core facility, but will also be versatile for connection to other data and sample resources located outside. The persistent International GeoSample Number (IGSN) of the System for Earth Sample Registration (SESAR) is used to identify and “publish” samples/data and the PANGEA system is utilized for data set and publication access.