A review of geoanalytical databases

Abstract

Geoanalytical data provide fundamental information according to which the Earth’s resources can be known and exploited to support human life and development. Large amounts of manpower and material and financial resources have been invested to acquire a wealth of geoanalytical data over the past 40 years. However, these data are usually managed by individual researchers and are preserved in an ad hoc manner without metadata that provide the necessary context for interpretation and data integration requirements. In this scenario, fewer data, except for published data, can be reutilized by geological researchers. Many geoanalytical databases have been constructed to collect existing data and to facilitate their use. These databases are useful tools for preserving, managing, and sharing data for geological research, and provide various data repositories to support geological studies. Since these databases are dispersed and diverse, it is difficult for researchers to make full use of them. This contribution provides an introduction on available geoanalytical databases. The database content can be made accessible to researchers, the ways in which this can be done, and the functionalities that can be used are illustrated in detail. Moreover, constraints that have limited the reutilization of geoanalytical data and creation of more advanced geoanalytical databases are discussed.