GEON portal-based services and middleware framework are being deployed in support of the Digital Archeological Record project (tDAR), led by Prof. Keith Kintigh at Arizona State University. With support from two National Science Foundation grants, tDAR is a project that has brought together a team of ASU archaeologists and computer scientists to design and build a digital information infrastructure (cyberinfrastructure) for systematically collected archaeological data.

Dr. Kai Lin, architect of GEON’s semantic data technologies was invited to participate in an NSF-sponsored workshop, The Promise and Challenge of Archaeological Data Integration, in Santa Barbara at the end of 2004. Workshop participants recognized that the technologies developed in GEON for semantic tagging and integration of data could be adapted and extended for applications in archaeology. When NSF funded the Digital Archeological Record project, Prof. Kintigh and his team approached GEON and proposed a collaboration where the tDAR project could leverage GEON cyberinfrastructure while, in turn, GEON would benefit from new ontology and data integration tools being developed for tDAR.

Kintigh says “This represents an ideal sort of collaboration. Adopting the GEON code base is allowing tDAR to become operational much more quickly and permits us to focus our development on the challenging issues of integrating and preserving legacy datasets with inconsistent data recording protocols and incommensurate ontologies. In turn, we believe that our work can help extend GEON’s capabilities for semantic data processing and data preservation, thus enabling GEON to more effectively utilize legacy data in geosciences and other fields.”

The “look and feel” of the GEON portal are being customized to serve the tDAR community. The GEON portal middleware includes the “GEON software stack” and a set of tools deployed as portlets within the portal framework. The Portal Server runs the Rocks cluster management software, and hosts the GEON Portal and its dependent libraries and portlets. A separate Data Server provides the capability to host data registered through the portal. The Data Server also runs the SDSC Storage Resource Broker (SRB) software, which provides a number of built-in data management services. Uniform authentication within this environment is provided by the Grid Authentication Management Architecture (GAMA) framework. The tDAR portal and data servers are hosted at SDSC. For more information about the GEON software architecture click on the Technology tab <http://www.geongrid.org/technology/> on the GEON website.

A separate code repository has been established for the tDAR project to enable concurrent development of software between the two projects. This allows new functionality developed in tDAR to be integrated into the main GEON code base as needed, after software testing and quality assurance. For more information on tDAR, please see www.tdar.org.

GEON PIs Professor Ann Gates (Chair, Computer Science, UTEP) and Dr. Chaitan Baru (San Diego Supercomputer Center) will co-chair a panel discussion entitled “Cyberinfrastructure: Changing the Face of Science and Engineering,” at the SACNAS (Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science) Annual Meeting, October 11-14, 2007, in Kansas City, MO. This session will provide participants a forum to learn about and discuss state-of-the-art cyber-resources that support education as well as science and engineering research. Topics will include how cyberinfrastructure (CI) removes barriers (e.g., time, space, location, institution) and enables broader participation in science and engineering. Opportunities for involvement in CI efforts and training will also be discussed.

Other panel speakers include John Fernandez (Texas A&M), Diane Baxter (SDSC), Sonia Oretega (NSF), Jose Munoz (NSF), and G. Randy Keller (Univ of Oklahoma). This panel will be held on Friday, 10/12, at 10:15 a.m.

The theme of this year’s SACNAS meeting is “Stretching the Imagination to Support Leadership and Sustainability”, and full program details can be found at http://www.sacnas.org/confNew/confClient/ .

GEON will be present, in a variety of ways, at the upcoming Geological Society of America Fall meeting in Denver, October 28-31. Plan to visit the GEON booth (#136 in the Exhibitor’s Hall) to learn about our latest tools and services and portal enhancements, and to discuss these with project members who have been integrally involved in their development.

GEON PI Ramon Arrowsmith (Arizona State University), will be a speaker in the Pardee Keynote Symposia (P4. New Data, Models, and Concepts of the San Andreas Fault System). His talk is entitled Structural Geology, Tectonic Geomorphology, and Recent Slip History of the South-Central San Andreas Fault , Session No. 155-3, Tuesday, 10/30/07, 2:10 p.m., Rm. 605/607. Abstract at http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2007AM/finalprogram/abstract_125668.htm.

Sessions T119 and T123 will be chaired by GEON PIs:

T119. The Impact of Geoinformatics on Geoscience Research and Education (Posters)
Dogan Seber (SDSC), Session No. 56, Sunday, 10/28/07, 1:30-5:30p.m., Exhibit Hall E/F

T123. Geoscience Data for Geoinformatics
G. Randy Keller (Univ of Oklahoma), Session No. 78, Monday, 10/29/07 8 a.m. - 12:00p.m., Room #702

Following are some of the presentations being made by GEON team members:

Efficient Management of GEON LiDAR Datasets Using Commodity Clusters (Viswanath Nandigam; Chaitan Baru; and Sandeep Chandras; San Diego Supercomputer Center. Science leads for GEON LiDAR Workflow are Prof. Ramon Arrowsmith and Chris Crosby, Arizona State University). Session No. 56, Booth# 124, Sunday, 10/28/07, 1:30-5:30 p.m., Exhibit Hall E/F. Abstract at http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2007AM/finalprogram/abstract_131906.htm)

Educational Applications of Photorealistic 3D Modeling When Applied to a Meander Point Bar Sequence of the Pennsylvanian Hartshorne Formation at the Huckleberry Creek Spillway Arkansas (Alex Biholar; Dean Tuck; Brian S. Burnham; Margie Cording; Lionel White; Mohammed Alfarhan; Carlos Aiken; and John Oldow ). Session No. 56, Booth 111, Sunday, 10/28/07, 1:30-5:30 p.m., Exhibit Hall E/F. Abstract at http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2007AM/finalprogram/abstract_131850.htm.

Capture and Construction of Photorealistic 3D Geologic Models of the Pennsylvanian Hartshorne Sandstone of Huckleberry Creek Spillway in Central Arkansas (Brian S. Burnham; Dean Tuck; Alex Biholar; Margie Cording; Lionel White; Mohammed Alfarhan; Carlos Aiken, and John Oldow). Session No. 58, Booth 73, Sunday, 10/28/07, 6-8 p.m., Exhibit Hall E/F. Abstract at http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2007AM/finalprogram/abstract_131364.htm.

The Use of 3D Photorealistic Models to Correlate the Structure and Statigraphy of Five Outcrops of the Austin Chalk/Eagleford Shale Contact in Cedar Hill, Texas (Margie Cording; Dean Tuck; Brian S. Burham; Alex Biholar; Lionel White; Mohammed Alfarhan; Carlos Aiken; and John Oldow). Session No. 78-14, Monday, 10/29/07, 11:30-11:45 a.m., Room 702. Abstract at http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2007AM/finalprogram/abstract_131961.htm.

A New Look at the Lithospheric Structure in the Southern Rocky Mountain-Rio Grande Rift Region (G. Randy Keller, School of Geology and Geophysics, University of Oklahoma). Session No. 101, Monday, 10/29/07, 1:30 p.m., Rm 703. Abstract at http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2007AM/finalprogram/abstract_131215.htm.

Towards a Generic Framework for Semantically-enabled Geosciences Data Integration
(Lin, Kai, Baru, Chaitanya). Session No. 231, Wednesday, 10/31/07, 3:00-3:15 p.m. Abstract at
http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2007AM/finalprogram/abstract_132135.htm.

A Regional Geophysical Overview of the Geoswath: Pacific Northwest to the Appalachians (G. Randy Keller; Benjamin J. Drenth; Maxwell S. Okure; Jessica Pardo; S. Miguel Angelo; Matthew Hamilton; Roderick Perez; Ha Mai; School of Geology and Geophysics, University of Oklahoma). Session No. 229, Wednesday, 10/31/07, 5:10 p.m., Colorado Convention Center: 403. Abstract at http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2007AM/finalprogram/abstract_129571.htm.

A project led by a group of University of Missouri-Columbia researchers has been awarded $2.16 million from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to bolster the collaborative efforts between the U.S. and China in determining the cause of intraplate earthquakes that have occurred in both countries.

GEON PI Mian Liu, Professor of Geophysics in the College of Arts and Science, will lead this multi-institutional study with a team of colleagues from MUs Department of Geological Sciences. Knowledge gained from North China will help in understanding earthquakes in the New Madrid area and other seismic zones in central and eastern U.S., as well as benefit the broader geosciences community through the production of data sets, computer models and curriculum materials. G. Randy Keller (Professor and Edward Lamb McCollough Chair in Geology and Geophysics, University of Oklahoma, and GEON PI) is a Co-PI on this project. Dr. Keller indicated that “these efforts will involve substantial integrated analysis that will leverage the GEON model”.

This PIRE (Partnerships for International Research and Education) project will build a broad partnership to investigate what causes large intraplate quakes in North China and improve understanding of intraplate seismic activity in central and eastern United States. The U.S. partners include the University of Oklahoma, University of Colorado, North Carolina State University, U.S. Geological Survey, the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS), and UNAVCO. The Chinese partners include two top Chinese universities, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the China Earthquake Administration.