DigitalCrust – a 4D Framework to Organize Our Knowledge of Crustal Properties

Ying Fan, Rutgers Univ, Piscataway, NJ, United States, Stephen M Richard, U.S. Geoscience Information Network, Tucson, AZ, United States, Sky Bristol, USGS Headquarters, Reston, VA, United States, Shanan E Peters, University of Wisconsin Madison, Geoscience, Madison, United States, Ilya Zaslavsky, San Diego Supercomputer Center, La Jolla, United States, Nils Moosdorf, Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT), Bremen, Germany, Steve Ingebritsen, US Geological Survey, Geology, Minerals, Energy, and Geophysics, Menlo Park, United States, Aaron Ian Packman, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, United States, Tom Gleeson, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada and Richard P Hooper, Tufts University, Medford, MA, United States
Abstract:
We have been mapping the earth’s crust for over two centuries for various intellectual and engineering pursuits. It is time that we create a place to integrate the data and knowledge, so that we can maximize the use of existing data, set up a workspace for testing multiple hypotheses, and integrate/synthesize what we know so that we can see the large picture. Through NSF EarthCube support that brings earth scientists and computer scientists together, we are beginning to explore the paths to create a 4D (space-time) geologic framework that will (1) integrate existing large-scale data on crustal composition and material properties, (2) allow the community to contribute data and knowledge, and (3) allow users to derive products for specific applications. The initiative was first motivated by the need for gridded permeability and porosity datasets to support regional to continental-scale fluid flow modeling, but its scope has expanded to include all data/knowledge about the upper crust of the earth, from the land surface to the brittle-ductile transition zone, for such a framework is potentially useful for many earth science disciplines and we all gain by working together.
Back to: Understanding Coupled Fluid Flow, Chemical Reactions, Mechanical Deformation, and Transport throughout Earth'™s Crust I