Making geoscientific lab data FAIR: a conceptual model for a geophysical laboratory database

Abstract

Abstract. The term of geoscientific laboratory measurements involves a variety of methods in geosciences. Accordingly, the resulting data comprise many different data types, formats, and sizes, respectively. Handling such a diversity of data, e.g. by storing the data in a generally applicable database, is difficult. Some discipline-specific approaches exist, but a geoscientific laboratory database that is generally applicable to different geoscientific disciplines has been lacking up to now. However, making research data available to scientists beyond a particular community has become increasingly important. Global working groups such as the Committee on Data of the International Science Council (CODATA) put effort in the development of tools to improve research data handling. International standards (e.g. ISO 19156) and ontologies (e.g. UCUM) provide a general framework for certain aspects that are elemental for the development of database models. However, these abstract models need to be adapted to meet the requirements of the geoscientific community. Within a pilot project of the NFDI4Earth initiative, we developed a conceptual model for a geoscientific laboratory database. To be able to handle the complex settings of geoscientific laboratory studies, flexibility and extensibility are key attributes of the presented approach. The model is intended to follow the FAIR (findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability) data principles to facilitate interdisciplinary applicability. In this study, we consider different procedures from existing database models and include these methods in the conceptual model.