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Rescue of Long-Tail Data from the Ocean Bottom to the Moon

Control ID: 1801775

Title: Rescue of Long-Tail Data from the Ocean Bottom to the Moon

Authors (First Name, Last Name): Leslie Hsu1, Kerstin A Lehnert1, Suzanne M Carbotte1, Vicki Lynn Ferrini1, John W Delano2, James B Gill3, Maurice Tivey4

Institutions (All):

  1. Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Palisades, NY, United States.
  2. Dept. of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, University at Albany, State University of New York, Albany, NY, United States.
  3. Earth & Planetary Sciences, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, United States.
  4. Geology & Geophysics, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA, United States.

Abstract Body: IEDA (Integrated Earth Data Applications, www.iedadata.org), the NSF facility that operates EarthChem, the Marine Geoscience Data System, and the System for Earth Sample Registration, launched a Data Rescue Initiative in 2013 to advance preservation and re-use of valuable legacy datasets that are in danger of being lost. As part of this initiative, IEDA established a competition for Data Rescue Mini-Awards that provide modest funds to investigators to properly compile, document, and transfer legacy data sets to IEDA. Applications from late-career and near-retirement investigators were specifically encouraged. Awardees were given approximately six months to complete their data rescue activities. Three projects were awarded in 2013: (1) Geochemistry of Lunar Glasses: assembly of major element, trace element, volatile element, and isotope ratio data for lunar volcanic glasses and lunar impact glasses, (2) Geochemical and Geochronological data from Fiji, Izu-Bonin-Marianas, and Endeavor segment: assembly of published and unpublished data and metadata from large rock sample collections, and (3) Near-bottom Magnetic Data: curation and archival of 35 years of high-resolution, near-bottom magnetic field data from deeptowed platforms, submersibles, and ROVs. IEDA is working closely with the awardees to guide and support the data rescue effort and to assist with specific challenges related to outdated storage media or technology, diversity of platforms over decades of research, and the lack of established standards for data documentation. In this contribution we describe procedures and tools used for each project, summarize lessons learned and best practices, and present the final output of each data rescue project. Depending on the experiences of this first year and the availability of funds, we plan to continue the competition in future years.

Keywords: 1912 INFORMATICS Data management, preservation, rescue, 1026 GEOCHEMISTRY Composition of the moon, 1032 GEOCHEMISTRY Mid-oceanic ridge processes, 3005 MARINE GEOLOGY AND GEOPHYSICS Marine magnetics and paleomagnetics.