Breaking boundaries: IGCP 521 database and science informatics

Over the past decade, the Internet has greatly accelerated collaboration among scientists: realizing the full potential of the sharing and repurposing of research data is now viewed as a priority. In order to grasp the “big picture” of events in the Black Sea–Mediterranean Corridor over the past 30,000 years, an experimental Web-database application has been designed for the International Geological Correlation Programme (IGCP) Project 521 that will share data from scientists worldwide. All data entered must be accompanied by GIS coordinates, depth/elevation, age (historical, geological, or archaeological) and metadata related to the environmental context. In this way, when plotted by latitude and longitude on general topographic and bathymetric maps of the Corridor with NASA land imagery, data from various disciplines and research endeavors can be combined, consolidated and visualized. Each point on the Web-based map presentation is “clickable” to reveal the source, metadata and links to further information. A prototype system demonstrates the potential to display all available data sets in millennial to decadal time slices, and to create displays and juxtapositions of data sets that have rarely or never co-existed before because of political, linguistic, and disciplinary boundaries. Such displays reveal new perspectives of old interpretations by breaking the restrictive boundaries of disciplinary research domains. The IGCP 521 project currently brings together researchers from twenty-three nations, allowing them to share data at annual meetings from 2005 to 2010. To prevent disintegration of this multi-national liaison at the end of the project, however, there is an urgent need to encourage database entry both during and beyond the IGCP 521 lifespan, so that the informatics system persists as a living archive.