CHRONOS: An Interactive Network Of Data and Tools for Earth System History
"CHRONOS (Greek: time) aims to create a dynamic, interactive and time-calibrated framework for Earth history. CHRONOS's main objective is to develop a network of databases and visualization and analytical methodologies that broadly deal with chronostratigraphy - that is, with developing a better tool (the time scale) for understanding fundamental Earth processes through time. The CHRONOS platform will provide a new investigative environment for interdisciplinary Earth history research that includes the evolution and diversity of life, climate change, geochemical cycles, rapid geologic events, magnetic field fluctuations, and other major Earth system processes. What caused the largest mass extinction of the last 600 million years? How did life evolve from the first simple bacteria that dominated for billions of years? The goal is not only to produce a system for assembling and consolidating such a wide range of Earth history data, but also to provide a platform for modern, innovative Earth science research, and to empower the general public with new knowledge of Earth science facts and issues."

GEON: Cyberinfrastructure For The Geosciences
"GEON is being designed as a scientist-centered cyberinfrastructure, freeing researchers to think and be creative by relieving them of onerous data management tasks. Through a scalable and interoperable network, the project will provide scientists with a growing array of tools they can use without having to be IT experts. These include data integration mechanisms, as well as computational resources and integrated software for analysis, modeling, and visualization. In this way, GEON will bridge traditional disciplines-an indispensable step in understanding the Earth as a unified system. "

ISES-CI: A Workshop for Identifying the Cyberinfrastructure Needs and Opportunities for Petrology, Geochemistry and Tectonics
A workshop was held in Lawrence, Kansas, on March 28 and 29, 2003, "to identify the needs and opportunities of the Petrology, Geochemistry and Tectonics communities for participating in and building a cyberinfrastructure for research and teaching. The goals of this workshop were to: 1) identify the existing and needed databases and tools that will foster progress in an increasingly data-rich and connected research climate; 2) determine what sorts of collaborations both internal and external to the Petrology, Geochemistry and Tectonics communities are needed; 3) start a discussion on data standards for format and metadata; 4) prepare a strategy for meeting and implementing the goals listed above." About 25 geoscientists attended, covering "a broad spectrum of expertise, including database and data analysis tool development. The end result of the workshop was the preparation of a report to NSF and the broader earth science community."

MG&G DMS: Marine Geology & Geophysics Data Management System
Locate data in ocean, coastal, and polar environments and across multiple types and disciplines. Create maps (view images and download grids from our global bathymetry database).

GERM: Geochemical Earth Reference Model
"The Geochemical Earth Reference Model (GERM) initiative is a grass-root effort with the goals of establishing a community consensus on a chemical characterization of the Earth, its major reservoirs, and the fluxes between them. The GERM initiative will provide a review of available scientific constraints for: (1) the composition of all major chemical reservoirs of the present-day Earth, from core to atmosphere; (2) present-day fluxes between reservoirs; (3) the Earth’s chemical and isotopic evolution since accretion; and (4) the chemical and isotopic evolution of seawater as a record of global tectonics and climate. Even though most of the constraints for the GERM will be drawn from chemical data sets, some data will have to come from other disciplines, such as geophysics, nuclear physics, and cosmochemistry. GERM also includes a diverse chemical and physical data base and computer codes that are useful for our understanding of how the Earth works as a dynamic chemical and physical system."