Mission Statement

During the past >25 years, thousands of high-impact publications and new avenues of geochemical research were realized using the GEOROC data service.
We strive to maintain and further develop the GEOROC database and related services as an all-access-free, scientifically curated database and a leading source of global geochemical and isotopic data sets to further facilitate innovative research in Earth System Science and beyond.

We aim to contribute to international efforts to foster accessibility of global geochemical data and establish common standards to improve interoperability with a network of other data providers, such as the Interdisciplinary Earth Data Alliance and the OneGeochemistry Initiative.

New tools for data curation, quality assessment and data analysis will be developed and shared.

Further, we support IT infrastructure for the GeoReM database, a key source for geochemical data on certified geological and environmental reference materials.

The Digital Geochemical Data Infrastructure (DIGIS) concept for GEOROC 2.0 will thus continue and enhance the existing data collection by contributing towards a growing and interconnected platform that provides advanced service to the community and meets future challenges of digital data-based geochemical research.

Our Accomplishments from the first Funding Phase (2021–2025)

• Securing future functionality of the GEOROC database by realigning GEOROC with current and future demands in digital geochemical research, especially regarding FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable) data principles


• Development of a new GEOROC data model (ODM2) and re-establishing data exchange with EarthChem


• Continued data ingestion into GEOROC, with data from over 3000 publications added since October 2021


• Establishment of the DIGIS data repository with archiving and DOI-minting capabilities at the GFZ Data Services, hosted at the German Research Centre for Geosciences


• Development of the beta-version of GEOROC RESTful API for data access


• Community outreach on various international conferences and workshops


• Engagement within the OneGeochemistry initiative, which seeks to build and maintain international, community-agreed standards for geochemical data to facilitate interoperability between globally distributed data systems


• Contribution to the NFDI4Earth Pilot “Developing Tools and FAIR Principles for the GEOROC and MetBase Data Bases”

A detailed summary of the project report (2021–2025) can be found here: Summary Report

Our Objectives for the second Funding Phase (2025–2028)

• Development of a new data model for the GeoReM database and full integration of GeoReM into the DIGIS data infrastructure


• Fully facilitate data discovery and access based on controlled metadata vocabularies enabling full interoperability between GEOROC and GeoReM databases and to other platforms


• Finalize the development of the GEOROC API and establish an API service for GeoReM, ensuring that data can be more readily harvested and exchanged with other data services


• Complete development of new web interfaces for GEOROC and GeoReM databases, with more flexible, customizable query options.


• Provide visualization and statistical tools for data analysis and data quality assessment, e.g., NFDI4Earth Pilot “An Adaptable Quality Evaluation Tool for Geochemical Data”


• Development of an “Admin Tool” for a web-based community data entry and curation for both GEOROC and GeoReM databases


• Improve the quality of data and metadata contained in the GEOROC database


• Improve the repository work flow linking GEOROC and GFZ Data Services


• Optimize the general performance of the DIGIS data infrastructure


• Expanding the use of GEOROC data to research beyond “classical” geochemistry to other research


• Develop a prototype AI-assisted data-curation platform in which AI models identify and highlight relevant information in scientific papers and provide domain-informed guidance to human curators, thereby improving the scalability and efficiency of the curation process.


• Develop a benchmark based on existing GEOROC data to evaluate fully automated data-curation systems and guide the development of the AI-assisted curation platform.


• Provide AI-powered data extraction and enrichment as reusable services that can be integrated into GEOROC and other data-curation workflows through standardized interfaces.

• open access to end-to-end text and data mining;


• integration of data DOIs;


• links to persistent identifiers for example geochemical sample storage system via the International Generic Sample Number (IGSN);


• multi-way data harvesting capabilities as well as state-of-the-art connectivity to other databases;


• promoting applications in other research areas (e.g. soil science, remote sensing, archaeometry) through increased accessibility and ease-of-use of free-access geochemical databases;


• integrating GeoReM into the DIGIS data infrastructure

Timeline

DIGIS is a multi-year project and you will see no immediate changes to the GEOROC database. While GEOROC 2.0 is being developed, the current GEOROC database will continue to be updated and curated by Bärbel Sarbas with help from the DIGIS team. We plan to release a beta version of GEOROC 2.0 for public testing in and eventually we will replace the current database and its front-end during the second funding period.

Sponsors & Collaborators

After the successful first funding phase, DIGIS is supported for another three years through the Scientific Library Services and Information Systems programme of the German Research Foundation (DFG) and forms an integral part of the current NFDI4Earth initiative. In the 3rd Cohort of Pilots, NFDI4Earth approved the proposal from DIGIS and representatives of IAG to develop an adaptable tool that allows users of the GEOROC geochemical database to evaluate and quantify the quality of stored data according to their specific applications (Pilot: An Adaptable Quality Evaluation Tool for Geochemical Data). Additionally, DIGIS has teamed up officially with GFZ Data Services as a central domain repository for DOI-referenced geoscientific research data. GFZ Data Services will provide data publication services for datasets relevant for the GEOROC database with state-of-the-art domain-specific metadata curation.