iGEON Activities – India

The international GEON activities in India are being coordinated by the University of Hyderabad, in particular via the Center for Earth and Space Sciences (CESS) and the Center for Modeling, Simulation, and Design (CMSD). Hyderabad is the home of a number of research labs and educational institutions that have special strengths in geosciences and related disciplines including, the National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI), National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA), Geological survey of India (GSI), Central Ground Water Board (CGWB), Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT), Atomic Minerals Directorate, and the Indian National Center for Ocean Information Science (INCOIS).

The activities in Hyderabad are led by Prof. K.V. Subbarao (Professor-in-Charge, CESS) and Prof. Arun Agarwal (Professor-in-Charge, CMSD), and include establishment of a GEON “node” at the University of Hyderabad, which will provide access to the datasets and tools hosted by the Indian geosciences community participating in GEON. Another activity will be an annual GEON workshop to train geoscientists in the latest advances in geoinformatics. The first such workshop was conducted in October 2005 at the University of Hyderabad (http://geongrid.org/workshops/ciw_uofhyd/).

Participation of the University of Hyderabad in GEON was facilitated by the fact that the University of Hyderabad was already collaborating with the University of California, San Diego via the PRAGMA project (Pacific Rim Applications and Grid Middleware Assembly, www.pragma-grid.net). University of Hyderabad is a founding member of PRAGMA and Prof. Agarwal is the UofHyd PI for PRAGMA.

Mutual Benefit
Establishing a GEON node in India provides benefits to both sides, i.e. the GEON participants in India and the rest of the GEON network.

The benefits to the Indian participants include:

  1. Access to a number of geoscience datasets and tools. For example, Indian scientists are interested in accessing the dinosaur distribution database (called, DINO) which has been made interoperable with the PGAP LITH and CSS databases hosted by GEON. Paleocoordinates for 50,000+ localities have been pre-calculated and these have now been assembled in the databases, using the ICS 2004 timescale and Scotese’s Paleomap plate rotation program. Access to these paleo datasets is of interest to collaborators in India.
  2. Access to gravity and magnetic datasets that have been assembled and made available under GEON. These datasets cover North America and other regions. Data from regions that have similar age and geology as regions in India are of great interest for comparative studies.
  3. Initiation of “e-science” and “cyberinfrastructure” activities in India. GEON is a collaborative project among geosciences and computer science/IT researchers. Participation in such a project helps cross-fertilization of research activities in India among Earth Science and Computer Science researchers. This project can jumpstart such activities in India by providing the opportunity for the India CS/IT community to become familiar with the computational and data needs of the Indian geosciences community, and for Indian Earth Scientists to learn more about “cybertools” that may help them in their own research.
  4. Education and training. The proposed annual GEON workshops in India are an extremely valuable aspect of the project. They provide education and training to the Indian geoscience researchers in the field of geoinformatics, by exposing them to the latest advances in cybertools. They will also expose the Indian IT research community to the needs and requirements of geoscience applications.

Benefits to the GEON network include:

  1. Access to geologic data from India. The participation of University of Hyderabad in GEON, and establishment of a GEON portal at UofHyd, will enable members of GEON in US to gain access to Indian paleomagnetic, paleontologic, and paleogeographic datasets and associated maps that will be published at the iGEON-India node.
  2. Access to Indian geophysical data. The iGEON-India portal plans to provide access to gravity data, seismic data, and Deccan flood basalt geochemistry data.
  3. Access to mineralogical datasets. Some of the data that will be published includes Indian metallogenic data on diamonds and kimberlites, which are critical in understanding geologic processes at a global scale.
  4. A number of projects have already been identified for the Master’s in Computer Applications (MCA) program at the University of Hyderabad. Completion of these projects will result in a number of useful tools being developed for use in the broader GEON network.

A joint proposal is being submitted to support future GEON workshops in India and to support exchange of students and staff between India and US.