This is the first edition of the GEON newsletter for 2009! This issue covers project activities and news over the past few months. While things slowed down a bit over the December break, our activities picked up immediately in the new year. Please read on!

A new GEON website/portal has been unveiled, which seamlessly integrates the open as well as the login-restricted sections of the site. We continue our efforts to register new resources and link to other geoinformatics resources from this portal.

Two important new activities this year are OpenTopography.org and OpenEarth Framework. The successful GEON LiDAR Workflow (GLW) application now has a home of its own at opentopography.org (see article below). Users can access this site directly or via the GEON portal. OpenTopography.org provides a data access and processing system for the growing volume of publicly available high-resolution topographic data.

We have initiated the OpenEarth Framework activity as an open, community-based effort to develop a comprehensive integration framework for 3D and 4D earth science data. The eventual goal is not only to provide data integration but also quantitative model-based integration of earth science data.

Our education activities continue with the on-going Cyberinfrastructure Summer Institute for Geoscientists, which will be offered again in 2009 (August 10-14)—this time with 2 tracks, one for users and educators and another for developers.

Several collaborative activities are underway, as described in the articles below. An exciting new collaboration has been established with the Geosciences Information Network (GIN) project, which is funded by the NSF INTEROP program. Collaborative activities continue with the iGEON program in India and with PRAGMA and the GEO Grid project in Japan.  We have also recently established a collaboration with computer scientists at Carnegie Mellon University to enhance the GEON search capability with ontology-aided searching of bibliographic information. Finally, we have just been awarded a grant from the NSF Cluster Exploratory (CluE) program to study the performance of alternative parallel processing approaches for serving large geospatial data sets, using LiDAR data.

Please read on for more details, and also stay tuned for future newsletters.

--Chaitan Baru, SDSC

GEON Unveils New Portal

In our continued effort to improve usability of the GEON Portal, we have released a new version with additional features and an improved user interface. This release integrates the formerly login restricted sections of the portal, providing open access to data and tools.  Users are prompted to login only when they want to access their private workspace or perform privileged operations, such as registering resources or or submitting computationally intensive jobs.

The new site provides a less cluttered and more integrated layout to support easy navigation to the data, tools and other resources. The organization of the site has been modified to better highlight the types of data and resources currently available.  Other features include a single sign-on connection to the new OpenTopography.org Portal, to which all of the GEON LiDAR functionality has been migrated; a “quick links” feature to provide easy access to frequently used tools; and, easier access to discussion forums and tutorials.

Please visit the new site at http://www.geongrid.org If you have comments or questions please let us know via email to

Introducing the OpenTopography Portal

There has been significant interest in high resolution topographic data. As a result, we decided to migrate the LiDAR topography application, previously hosted in the GEON portal, to the new OpenTopography Portal (http://opentopography.org/).  OpenTopography.org provides the same core LiDAR data access and processing capabilities that were available through GEON, with streamlined access, new features, better opportunities for user discussion, and most importantly, a dedicated online site for users to find high resolution LiDAR topography and related resources. 

The OpenTopography site can be accessed using the above URL, or via the Topography tab in the GEON website. If you are already a registered user of the GEON LiDAR system, your log in, password and LiDAR job archive have all been seamlessly migrated to the OpenTopography Portal. Simply log in via the “myOpenTopo” page with your GEON Portal username and password.

We hope to build upon OpenTopography.org in the coming months with additional datasets, new features, and new collaborations.

Opentopography.org features include: no log in necessary to access the site and to download data; increased point cloud processing quotas for all users; Google Earth KML files and full-size browse images (jpg format) now automatically generated for all custom DEM jobs; more data and formats - all GeoEarthScope LiDAR data will be available in point cloud, custom DEM, standard DEM tiles, and Google Earth hillshade overlay format.  Last-but-not-least, we’ve added a new discussion forum and blog to allow users to ask questions, share tips and discoveries, and to stay up to date on relevant information.

We hope that our core users will find OpenTopography.org to be a helpful resource for accessing LiDAR topographic data, tools and information.  If you have comments, problems, resources you’d like to share, or are interested in collaborating, please feel free to contact us at: 

Additional GeoEarthScope Data Releases:  Northern California and Garlock Fault

Another round of GeoEarthScope LiDAR data is now available via OpenTopography.org.  This release includes additional data products for the previously released Northern California dataset as well as new products from the Southern and Eastern California dataset:

1. We are pleased to announce that GeoEarthScope airborne LiDAR hillshades for the Northern California dataset can now be viewed in Google Earth.  This new functionality makes it much easier to access and explore this rich dataset.  In the words of Tom Brocher (USGS, Menlo Park): “I think you’ll be impressed with this easy new way to view the bare earth LiDAR imagery from the GeoEarthscope survey in 2007. No knowledge of GIS is needed to view the processed images!”.  The Google Earth file (KML) can be download from http://www.opentopography.org/kml

2. The much anticipated Garlock fault portion of the Southern & Eastern California GeoEarthScope data acquisition can now be downloaded via OpenTopography.org in Google Earth hillshade overlay (KML) and standard tiled DEM formats – More information can be found here.

More GeoEarthScope airborne LiDAR data products will become available soon from other SoCal targets as well as Yellowstone, Pacific NW, Tetons, Wasatch and Alaska.  The Northern California dataset is already fully processed and accessible from OpenTopography.org.  Stay tuned for more!

New Display Capabilities in the GEON IDV: Time Series and Tracks

The GEON IDV, a data visualization and exploration tool, has the capability to plot data types not widely associated with the IDV.  In addition to the ability to track data, which was an early feature of this tool, users can now plot time series.

While all data in the IDV is mapped to earth locations and almost always is displayed in map views or in 3D views of the Earth, the IDV can now plot a time series of one or more data variables from a station at some location on the Earth.  The figure shows an IDV display of the three components of the change in location of the PBO GPS station TRND in California, during a period of more than 2 years.  This station has been moving gradually north, at about 15 millimeters per year, and moving eastward in a far less uniform manner. It has been gradually subsiding as well.

- Users can now display one or more time series (data variables) in the plot for each station.
- The live IDV display can zoom in on the time series plot, by time or data range, or both.
- The lower part of the IDV display window shows exact data values at any time in the time series plot.

The GEON IDV web site, which is maintained by UNAVCO, has all time series data for PBO GPS stations, available online.  Instructions on how to access the data and how to make the plots can be found at http://geon.unavco.org/unavco/IDV_for_GEON_gps.html.  This page also shows how to make maps with GPS station velocity vectors.

GEON at AGU

GEON was once again at the AGU Fall meeting, December 15-19 at the Moscone Convention Center West in San Francisco. We hosted a booth in the Exhibit Hall where conference visitors were able to talk to team members, learn about the project’s latest developments, and see demonstrations of the tools and data available via the GEON portal. 

The following presentations on GEON related work were also made:

“The GEON Integrated Data Viewer (IDV) for Exploration of Geoscience Data with Visualizations”, S Weir, C Meertens

“Catalog Federation and Interoperability for Geoinformatics”, A Memon, K Lin, C Baru

“KML-Based Access and Visualization of High Resolution LiDAR Topography”, CJ Crosby, JL Blair, V Nandigam, A Memon, C Baru, JR Arrowsmith

“Linking the EarthScope Data Virtual Catalog to the GEON Portal”, K Lin, A Memon, C Baru

“Integrating Diverse Geophysical and Geological Data to Construct Multi-Dimensional Earth Models: The Open Earth Framework”, C Baru, GR Keller, B Wallet, CJ Crosby, J Moreland, D Nadeau

“The GEON Integrated Data Viewer (IDV) and IRIS DMC Services Illustrate Cyberinfrastructure Support for Seismic Data Visualization and Interpretation”, C Meertens, S Wier, T Ahern, R Casey, B Weertman, C Laughbon

“A Cyberinfrastructure Platform for Distribution of GeoEarthScope LiDAR Topography Data”, CJ Crosby, V Nandigam, JR Arrowsmith, S Balakrishnan, N Alex, C Baru

“New Data Bases and Standards for Gravity Anomalies”, GR Keller, MW Wehbring, WJ Hinze, D Ravat, X Li

INTEROP – GIN (the Geosciences Information Network)

A coalition of the state geological surveys (AASG), the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), GEON, and other partners have received funding from the NSF INTEROP program for a 3-year project to start building a distributed, interoperable data network. AASG and USGS estimate they collectively maintain over 3,000 data bases or data sets.  The GIN project will develop standardized services to make these data accessible online in a distributed network using a few standards and protocols, and work with data providers to implement these services. 

The key components of this network are 1) catalog systems for data discovery; 2) service definitions that define interfaces for searching catalogs and accessing resources; 3) shared interchange formats to encode information for transmission (e.g. various XML markup languages); 4) data providers that publish information using standardized services defined by the network; and 5) client applications enabled to utilize information resources provided by the network. The GIN will integrate and utilize catalog resources that currently exist or are in development.

The Geosciences Information Network project will be managed by the Arizona Geological Survey on behalf of the Association of American State Geologists (AASG) in partnership with the USGS.  In addition to GEON, Earthchem is also a project partner.  Other collaborators include GIS software company ESRI, and the OneGeology consortium of 80 nations that is building a global digital geologic map. 

OneGeology and GIN have agreed to integrate their networks, effectively setting global standards among geological surveys that could be adopted across the entire field.  Work is in progress to build an ESRI geodatabase Geology Data Model for ArcGIS software to be compatible with GIN, and other companies are expressing interest in adapting their services, applications, and clients to take advantage of the vast data resources expected to become available through GIN.

GEON Co-PI appointed Associate Vice President for Research at UTEP

Dr. Ann Gates, GEON Co-PI who has served as a key liaison in many GEON outreach efforts, has been appointed Associate Vice President for Research at the University of Texas, El Paso effective September 1, 2008. Formerly the Chair of the Department of Computer Science, Dr. Gates directs the National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded Cyber-ShARE Center of Excellence, which focuses on developing and sharing resources through cyber-infrastructure to advance research and education in science. A member of the NSF Advisory Committee for Cyberinfrastructure, Dr. Gates leads the Computing Alliance for Hispanic-Serving Institutions, an NSF-funded consortium focused on the recruitment, retention, and advancement of Hispanics in computing.  In addition to helping faculty develop their research programs, Dr. Gates will assist the University in the promotion and coordination of multidisciplinary and multi-investigator proposals and projects like the Cyber-ShARE Center, which involves researchers in computer science, computational mathematics, environmental science, and geological sciences.

“Networking the Indian Geoscience Community through iGEON” Workshop held at University of Hyderabad

GEON team members Chaitan Baru, Christopher Crosby, and Viswanath Nandigam, from the San Diego Supercomputer Center, and G. Randy Keller, University of Oklahoma, traveled to India in January to run a Cyberinfrastructure Workshop and Short Course at the University of Hyderabad, jointly with that institution’s Center for Modeling, Simulation and Design (CMSD), and the University Centre for Earth and Space Sciences (UCESS).  The co-hosts in India were Prof. K. V. Subbarao, Director, UCESS and Prof. Arun Agarwal, Director, CMSD. Other workshop faculty included Prof. Rajeev Wankar and invited speakers and panelists from the National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI), National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA), the Atomic Minerals Department (AMD), and the Indian National Center for Ocean Information Systems (INCOIS).  About 35 attendees participated in the workshop and short course, including students from the University’s Master’s Programs in Mineral Development and Mining Technologies, as well as the Master’s and PhD programs in Computer Science. Many of the students were already working as research scientists at organizations such as NGRI, NRSA, and AMD.

The workshop highlighted features of GEON and discussed its architecture from a programmer and user perspective, followed by hands-on activities.  Topics covered include LiDAR and topographic data; geospatial/GIS data; web services, and the GEON Open Earth Framework.  Participants also shared their geoinformatics related research and discussed how GEON resources could be used in their work.

A Short Course in Geophysics, conducted by G. Randy Keller (University of Oklahoma), was held immediately following the GEON workshop.  This short course focused on hands-on tutorials in processing and analysis of gravity, magnetic, and other geophysical data.

CSIG ’08 Another Success, Dates Set with Expanded Curriculum Planned for CSIG ’09

This year’s Cyberinfrastructure Summer Institute for Geoscientists was held August 11-15th in the Synthesis Center at the University of California, San Diego.  There were 37 participants from across the U.S., as well as from academic institutions as far away as Korea, Denmark, Ireland, Japan, and Mexico.  The CSIG again attracted a broad range of participants, including faculty, post docs and grad students from the areas of Computer Science, Geology, Geography, and Library Sciences.  National labs and agencies were also represented, including the Idaho National Laboratory, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The full program, including webcasts of presentations, and speakers’ slides from this year’s CSIG, are available online at: http://www.geongrid.org/CSIG08/program_info.

Based on feedback received from prior participants (there are more than 200, now!) we are planning to modify the program for CSIG ’09 to include separate break-out sessions for “end users” of the system, e.g. researchers and educators, versus developers who are interested in building and developing the cyberinfrastructure.  CSIG ’09 will be held on Aug 10-14 at SDSC, UC San Diego. Details will be available via the CSIG website as well as announced via this newsletter - stay tuned!