Reaching Further with Earth Science Data

Earth Sciences cover a broad spectrum of research fields such as petrology, sedimentology, structural geology, seismology, and geomorphology, to name a few, which aim to understand interrelated processes on the surface and in the interior of our planet. Many of the research questions studied in the Earth sciences, such as, understanding past climates, the human impact on the Critical Zone*1, or the co-evolution of the geo- and biosphere, require interdisciplinary approaches, employing methodologies and integrating observations from diverse subdisciplines such as geochemistry, mineralogy, geophysics, and paleontology, but also increasingly from other disciplines, specifically biology and genomics. The use of data and samples in multi- and interdisciplinary research is substantially facilitated by consistent metadata including schemas and vocabularies, data formats, and data exchange protocols. The association of Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) with the Earth Science part of the Natural Sciences has, until recently, been largely limited to palaeontology, primarily due to its close affinity with biology. Standards have been developed that support the taxonomy of fo