Agreement on making geoscience data available worldwide

The OneGeology Board meeting wrapped up yesterday with plans to provide umbrella coordination to develop interoperability among regional geoscience data networks as part of the consortium's strategic goal of providing access to geoscience data worldwide.

Chris Pigram [right, center], CEO of Geoscience Australia and Chair of the OneGeology Board, hosted the meeting at GA headquarters in Canberra.

We are going to start by linking data systems in the U.S. (USGIN, managed by the Arizona Geological Survey), European Union (developing under the INSPIRE initiative) and East-Southeast Asia (under the CCOP- Coordinating Committee for Geoscience Programmes in East and Southeast Asia).   Conversations will be initiated with related systems being organized on other continents.

One of the major topics of the 3-day session was on long-term sustainability for OneGeology, with a diversified set of revenue sources identified including country memberships dues, government and foundation grants, consortia support for specific technical projects, industry sponsorship, and conferences.

OneGeology is an international consortium of over 130 organizations in 117 countries, with the majority of the members being Geological Survey Organizations.  The web portal initially provided access to maps from the participants creating a digital geologic map of the world at a scale of 1:1 million or better.