Issue 9

December 2023

Newsletter

Photo: Suzhou participants, November 7th

In This Issue

1. Medal to François Robida
2. Suzhou Meetings
3. Invitation to CGI Membership
4. New CGI Councilors
5. IGC Korea abstract deadline

McHarg Medal to François Robida
François Robida,
Past Chair of CGI,
has won the 2024
EGU Ian McHarg
Medal! This medal
was established bythe Earth andSpace Science
Informatics Division
in recognition ofthe scientific achievements of Ian McHarg. It
is awarded for distinguished research ininformation technology applied to Earth andspace sciences. Congratulations, François!

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CGI-DDE Future Geoscience
Information Standards Meetings

Ensuring that geoscience information will befindable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable
requires that we all adopt and contribute to thestewardship of global geoscience information
standards. These standards are the role of theInternational Union of Geological Sciences(IUGS) Commission for the Management andApplication of Geoscience Information (CGI).

At present, major progress in this field is being
stimulated by the highly successful IUGS Deeptime Digital Earth (DDE) project. To optimize
coordination and planning of these geoscience
information standards, and to support thesuccess of DDE, a workshop and forum on Future
Geoscience Information Standards were cohosted by CGI and DDE on 7-10 November 2023
in the beautiful city of Suzhou, China, with greatsuccess. The meetings were chaired by Prof.
Harvey Thorleifson, Prof. Natarajan Ishwaran,

Prof. Zhang Minghua, Dr Mark Rattenbury and Dr
François Robida. After opening remarks from theCity of Suzhou, and by IUGS President Prof. John
Ludden, by CGI Chair Prof. Harvey Thorleifson,
and by DDE Deputy Secretary General Prof.
Natarajan Ishwaran, workshop keynotes on theRole of Geoscience Information Standards forinternational initiatives and programs werepresented by CGI Past Chair François Robida andby DDE Science Committee Chair Prof. HansThybo.

The DDE geoscience information metadata
standard (Edition 1.0–2023) was then formallyreleased by Prof. Zhang Minghua and Dr Steve
Richard, after three years work on drafts andrevisions among DDE working groups globally.
At the initial DDE-focused two-day workshop on
7-8 Nov, ten DDE Science Working Groups
presented their progress and plans: geologicalmapping by Benjamin Sautter and Dr Song Yang,
stratigraphy by Dong Shaochun and Fan Junxuan,
igneous rock by Tong Ying, marginal seas by Zhang
Jinpeng, mineral resource assessment by Yang Jie,
DDE-China by Ciu Ning and Liu Rongmei,
geological time by Li Yang, paleogeography by Li
Haipeng, hydrogeology by Yu Ying, andgeomorphology by Li Sijin.

3The DDE platform and related major geoscience
initiatives were then introduced, withpresentations on OneGeology by Matt Harrison,
GSEU by Jasna Sinigoj, and the DDE Platform byHu Linshu.

Progress on the DDE knowledge system wasthen presented by Wang Shu and Zhu
Yuanqiang, construction of knowledge graphs for
petroliferous basin evaluation by Tang Xianming,and sedimentology knowledge graph by Xu
Yiwei. Prof. Marshall Ma presented a Keynote on
Machine-Readable Semantics in Data Science forGeosciences, and following talks were by Dr
Mark Rattenbury on geoscience terminology,
and Dr Steve Richard on LOOP knowledge
management.

Extensive discussions were held after eachsession on both the progress of DDE workgroups and on current geoscience standards
needed for DDE and concurrent initiatives.
Subsequent sessions covered status, needs andchallenges for geoscience standards andplanning for DDE success.

In addition to the highly capable andaccomplished DDE work group leaders andspokespersons, experts attending in person
included Benjamin Sautter, Clinton Smyth, FanJunxuan, Janpieter van Dijk, Jasna Šinigoj, Lesego
Polite Peter, Marshall Ma, Matt Harrison, MickaëlBeaufils, Nicholas Car, Simon Cox, and SteveRichard.

Online experts included Edd Lewis, JamesPassmore, Kazuhiro Miyazaki, Lesley Wyborn,
Mauricio Pavan Silva, Mickael Sexton, and TimDuffy.
At the CGI-focused 9-10 November forum,
Michael Sexton spoke on mature data models,Mickael Beaufils on emerging data models, Mark
Rattenbury on vocabularies and governance,
François Robida on promoting standards, Lesley
Wyborn on connecting geoscience domains, andSimon Cox on connecting to other disciplines.
At the ensuing session, new and refined
geoscience standards were discussed by Clinton
Smyth on industry applications, Steve Richard on
ontologies, and Nick Car on the semantic web.
Talks on Digital Twins, Data Science, AI, and othertopics were then presented by Harvey
Thorleifson, Marshall Ma, Matt Harrison, andothers.
Concluding discussion focused on next steps for
global geoscience standards, and valuablesuggestions to both CGI and DDE were provided
by participating experts and scientists.

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New CGI Councilors 2023
Mickaël Beaufils
BRGM FranceM.Beaufils@brgm.fr

The meetings were magnificently arranged andpresented by our superbly capable hosts.

Lesego P. Peter
Botswana Geoscience
Institutepeterl@bgi.org.bw

Michael Sexton
Geoscience Australia
Following the successful meetings on the futureof global geoscience information standards inSuzhou, China, 7-10 November 2023, CGI Council
has undertaken deliberations on a CGI Strategic
Plan. This has been tremendously focused by thesuperb discussions at the Suzhou meetings.

michael.sexton@ga.gov.auJasna ŠinigojGeological Survey ofSlovenia
jasna.sinigoj@geo-zs.si

Please visit the CGI web site
at https://cgi-iugs.org/, and if you
aren’t a member, please click theJoin Now button!

The International Geological Congress
abstract deadline is February 16th, 2024!