The portal used by Chesapeake Bay Environmental Observatory (CBEO), an NSF-supported CEO:P project prototyping cyberinfrastructure for analysis and modeling of hypoxia in Chesapeake Bay, relies on GEON portal technology. The portal is maintained by the SDSC CBEO team working closely with the GEON portal development group, and is at http://geon16.sdsc.edu:8080/gridsphere .

A range of new capabilities were added to the portal for the recent tutorial that the SDSC team gave to the CBEO audience on February 6, 2008. These new functions include the ability to register, explore and visualize shapefiles in projections other than the geographic projection, registration and search for additional data types, and integration with Hydroseek and DASH (Data Access System for Hydrology) data discovery and retrieval systems tuned to the Chesapeake Bay area. The portal provides access to multiple resources (shapefiles, Excel files, relational databases) that describe the dynamics of water quality by observation stations and along aircraft overflight lines in the Chesapeake Bay, as well as model grids and commonly used spatial datasets. These datasets can be integrated on demand (e. g. see a sample visualization of an aircraft trajectory overlaid on the 13K model of Chesapeake Bay, which utilizes GEON’s integration cart). In addition, the system takes advantage of the “federated portals” technology prototyped by GEON. This functionality allows CBEO users to search and retrieve public resources registered by users of other portals in the same “portal family”. This is an important step toward an integrated earth science data repository and registration system.

Another new development is an R-based kriging workflow being implemented by Tom Whitenack and Matt Rodriguez from SDSC based on the initial research script from Rebecca Murphy, a CBEO participant from JHU. When completed, the workflow will include querying a water quality database registered to the portal, generating a respective variogram, calibrating the variogram, and submitting it to an R-based kriging routine. Some components of the workflow are modeled after the LiDAR interpolation portlet developed by the GEON team.

The portal is being increasingly used by CBEO participants as a way to publish and share the project’s data and tools as a component of the growing cyberinfrastructure environment that supports a national audience of environmental observatory researchers, hydrologists and environmental engineers.

GEON team member, Chris Crosby, conducted a workshop entitled “Earthquakes recorded in the landscape: Using digital topography to investigate earthquake faulting” as part of the San Diego Supercomputer Center’s TeacherTECH Science Series. This Series brings together Middle School, High School, and Community College Educators. The workshop was held on Wednesday, February 27, 2008.

Using LiDAR topographic data from the San Andreas fault in southern and central California (and available via the GEON portal), these educators were introduced to the basics of how evidence of earthquakes are recorded in the landscape. The class used data from the GEON Portal and Google Earth software to visualize the the digital topography and to develop a basic understanding of plate tectonics-driven deformation. The workshop examined and discussed how offset stream channels, fault scarps and other features produced by earthquakes and documented in stunning detail in the digital topography can teach us about how earthquakes work. From observations of fault offset features in the landscape, the concepts of earthquake recurrence, slip and magnitude were discussed.

The slide presentation from this workshop can be viewed at http://lidar.asu.edu/TeacherTech08.html

AGU Joint Assembly, May 27-30, Ft. Lauderdale, FL

AGU’s next Joint Assembly is planned for May 27-30, and will provide a program that will cover topics in all areas of geophysical sciences. A special session being held at this Assembly, of particular interest to the GEON community, is:

Faster: Collection, distribution and applications of low-latency data in Earth science Session G04

Rapid access to data from a variety of geophysical instruments is increasingly important for a wide range of scientific applications, including regional seismic networks and rapid hazard assessments, tsunami and volcano warning, and space and atmospheric physics.

Reliable collection and distribution of data with low latency is a significant challenge for today’s networks, especially those operating in harsh environments and with limited funding. Fortunately, the growth in consumer and business demand for low-cost Internet access (in even remote areas) and other similar advances have made it easier to provide the needed data. We intend this session to bring together network and data managers, technologists, and researchers with an interest in low-latency data, and we particularly welcome those presentations that define scientific needs or new solutions that can foster further growth in this exciting area.

Abstract deadline is March 5, 2008. Full meeting details can be found at http://www.agu.org/meetings/ja08/

This year’s Geoinformatics 2008 meeting will provide an international forum for researchers and educators from earth and planetary sciences, and information technology/computer science to present new data, data analysis or modeling techniques, visualization schemes or technologies as they relate to developing the cyberinfrastructure for the geosciences.

Discovery, integration, management, and visualization of geoscience data with the goal of improving our understanding of the processes that have shaped the earth and our environment over time will be highlighted at the Geoinformatics 2008 Conference. Globalization of geoinformatics based research and education in support of meeting societal challenges will be a significant theme for the conference.

Geoinformatics 2008 will be held at GeoForschungsZentrum in Potsdam, Germany. Further information, including online registration and abstract submission, can be found at http://gi2008.gfz-potsdam.de/index.php?id=1029 . Travel support for graduate students, post docs, and assistant professors (from U.S. institutions only) may be available from the National Science Foundation (info available at the meeting website).

Sponsors of this meeting include: GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam; U.S. Geological Survey; Geological Society, Geoinformatics Division; British Geological Survey; Bundesanstalt für Geowissenschaften und Rohstoffe; American Geophysical Union, Earth and Space Science Informatics; European Geosciences Union, Earth and Space Science Informatics.

GEON will offer its annual week-long “Cyberinfrastructure Summer Institute for Geoscientists” (CSIG ‘08), at the University of California, San Diego from August 11-15, 2008. Topics to be covered in this year’s program include: an introduction to Geoinformatics; data integration challenges; data sharing portals and networks; remote-sensing data (including LiDAR); Service Oriented Architecture and Web Services; knowledge representation and ontologies; and visualization of 3D and 4D data.

Further information, including online registration, will be available from 1 April at http://www.geongrid.org/CSIG08/ . The registration deadline for CSIG ‘08 is 1 June 2008. Graduate students and post docs, as well as university faculty and instructors with the goal of promoting the development of curricula and courses in geoinformatics, are highly encouraged to apply to this Institute. Please forward this information to anyone you know who may be interested in this unique opportunity.

The CSIG is made possible through funding provided by the NSF (http://www.nsf.gov ).