Geoscience Knowledge Research Articles

An Effective Model for Enhancing Underrepresented Minority Participation and Success in Geoscience Undergraduate Research

ABSTRACTGeoscience research is a fundamental portal through which geoscience knowledge may be acquired and disseminated. A viable model to introduce, stimulate, and prolong geoscience education has been designed and implemented at the New York City College of Technology through a National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program in satellite and ground-based remote sensing that targets underrepresented minority students. The program is composed of three primary components: Structured Learning Environments: Preparation and Mentorship, Student Support and Safety Nets, and Vision and Impetus for Advancement. The first component, Structured Learning Environments: Preparation and Mentorship, places REU scholars within a research team and provides them with the skill sets necessary for proficiency in satellite and ground-based remote sensing research. The second component, Student Support and Safety Nets, provides a structured and holistic learning environment that supports the undergraduates in becoming successful researchers and scholars. The last component, Vision and Impetus for Advancement, exposes the REU scholars to geoscience in a wider context and inspires them to envision themselves as the geoscientists and the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce professionals of the 21st century. Since the inception of this NSF REU program in 2008, 47 undergraduate students—39 (83.0%) of whom are underrepresented minorities in STEM (including women)—have completed geoscience research or are engaged in geoscience or STEM careers.

How Students Can Be Supported to Apply Geoscientific Knowledge Learned in the Classroom to Phenomena in the Field: An Example From High School Students in Norway

ABSTRACTOur study explores how students apply geoscientific knowledge learned in the classroom to phenomena in a field setting. This was investigated by collecting video data from an ordinary high school context in Norway involving one teacher and a class of 17 high school students. We analyzed how the students learned rock identification and relative dating, first during the classroom preparation and then in the field. Supplementary data were collected 1 y after the fieldwork, when six of the students solved two posttasks of rock identification and relative dating. The video analyses of the students' talk and behavior while doing rock identification and relative dating focused on the level of student engagement, their thinking moves, and the extent of their understanding. The findings reveal that students who were able to apply their knowledge of relative dating were not able to do so for rock identification. One reason for this, we suggest, is that the nature of the geoscientific content influenced the students' ability to apply their knowledge in a field environment. Therefore, we identify qualities of relative dating and translate them to what we call “tools for observation and interpretation.” The article closes by suggesting how the qualities of relative dating can inform the development of tools for observation and interpretation for rock identification.

Sharing data and interpretations of geological maps via standardised metadata and geoportals

The so-called “Informatics-revolution” and related Information Technology (IT) are a chance to increase spreading of geoscientific knowledge and transfer of information represented in geological maps, but, in order to actually take advantage of systems-aided communication, geological information has to be specifically harmonized and standardized. New methodological and technological approaches in the representation and communication of geological maps are enabled by widespread use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and web mapping services (e.g. the WMS standard protocol) that i ) allow sharing and spatially discovering maps, and ii ) support interchange of data amongst different systems, experts and communities. Since sharing and retrieving of geological maps through geoportals and spatial data infrastructures spread, problems about semantic heterogeneity and different structures of geological databases (DB) come out. A strategy to meet needs of interoperability consists of integrating geological map DB by standard languages and meta-information, and is carried out by the INSPIRE (Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe) European directive that defines two relevant guidelines (the “Data Specification on Geology” and the “Metadata Implementing Rules”) usable to encode and share standardised geological information. An example of application of these standards is the Geoportal of the Torino Unit of the Institute for Geosciences and Earth Resources, where field data, map features and peculiar geological interpretations, extracted from GIS DB of geological maps, are given as single datasets and homogeneously described through specific metadata classes such as the Abstract sub-element and the Lineage sub-element. The two given examples of metadata compilations, referring to the Lis-Trana Fault and to the block stream deposits occurring in the “Torino Ovest” geological map (sheet n.155 of the Geological Map of Italy at 1:50,000 scale), highlight that standardisation is an opportunity i ) to better organize geological information, ii ) to give information about quality of data, and iii ) to specify intended meaning of interpreted features. Since metadata allow bringing out in an explicit format geological concepts and interpretations, reading of maps is improved and geoportals are actually a new method for encoding and sharing geological maps.

Comments: Awarding Excellence and Innovation

Editor's column The oil and gas industry, like many industries, awards its best and brightest companies, technologies, and individuals with annual or occasional awards, calling attention to excellence and innovation. Among the most prestigious are awards handed out at the International Petroleum Technology Conference (IPTC), held in late March in Beijing, and the upcoming Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) in May. IPTC singles out companies and major projects with its Excellence in Project Integration Award. The honor highlights projects that have demonstrated distinction throughout the entire value chain, and are at least USD 500 million equivalent in value. Past winners have included both international and national oil companies. Taken into account are projects that exemplify strong teamwork, solid geoscience knowledge, reservoir and production engineering expertise, outstanding facilities engineering practices, and a strong commitment to health, safety, and the environment and advocate innovative and people-oriented human resource policies and community programs. This year, 16 nominations were submitted representing projects in 12 countries. The IPTC Awards Committee selected three as finalists: Efficient Development of the Large Tight Sandstone Gas Field in Sulige—China National Petroleum Corp. and PetroChina Changqing Oilfield Co. Jubilee Project in Ghana—Tullow Ghana Ltd. Pazflor, a Technological Breakthrough in Deep Offshore Developments—Total Full coverage of the conference and the projects will be included in the May issue of JPT. The OTC honors companies, individuals, and new technologies. At the annual OTC Dinner in early May, the 2013 Distinguished Achievement Awards will be presented to Ken Arnold, senior technical advisor at Worley Parsons, who will receive the award for individual achievement, and to Total Exploration and Production, for corporate achievement. The Heritage Award will be presented to E. Dendy Sloan Jr., professor emeritus of Colorado School of Mines, and James Brill, professor emeritus at the University of Tulsa. Arnold, who is a member of the editorial advisory board of SPE’s Oil and Gas Facilities magazine, is being recognized for his outstanding leadership and extensive contributions to the E&P industry. He has played a key role in the offshore industry’s focus on safety through the development of recommended practices for offshore design and safety management, and has been instrumental in helping establish oilfield facilities engineering as a recognized technical engineering specialty. Total is being honored for the Pazflor deep offshore development in Angola, which has been producing for 18 months and is one of the world’s largest and most sophisticated deep offshore developments to date. Pazflor represented the first use of subsea separation and pumping on a wide scale and included construction of the world’s largest FPSO. OTC’s annual Spotlight on New Technology Awards recognize innovative technologies that are advancing the industry into the future. A full list of the winners and their technologies is contained in this issue.

A crust-scale 3D structural model of the Beaufort-Mackenzie Basin (Arctic Canada)

The Beaufort-Mackenzie Basin was initiated in the Early Jurassic as part of an Arctic rifted passive continental margin which soon after became overprinted by Cordilleran foreland tectonics. Decades of industrial exploration and scientific research in this petroliferous region have produced a wide spectrum of geological and geophysical data as well as geoscientific knowledge. We have integrated available grids of sedimentary horizons, well data, seismic reflection and refraction data, and the observed regional gravity field into the first crust-scale 3D structural model of the Beaufort-Mackenzie Basin. Many characteristics of this model reflect the complex geodynamic and tectonostratigraphic history of the basin.The Mesozoic–Cenozoic sedimentary part of the model comprises seven clastic units (predominantly sandy shales) of which the modelled thickness distributions allow to retrace the well-established history of the basin comprising a gradual north(east)ward shift of the main depocentres as well as diverse phases of localised erosion. As a result of this development, the present-day configuration of the basin reveals that the sedimentary units tend to be younger, more porous, and thus less dense towards the north at a constant depth level.By integrating three refraction seismic profiles and performing combined isostatic and 3D gravity modelling, we have modelled the sub-sedimentary basement of the Beaufort-Mackenzie Basin. The continental basement spans from unstretched domains (as thick as about 42km) in the south to extremely thinned domains (of less than 5km thickness) in the north where it probably represents transitional crust attached to the oceanic crust of the Canada Basin. The uppermost parts of the continental crust are less dense (ρ=2710kg/m3) and most probably made up by pre-Mesozoic meta-sediments overlying a heavier igneous and metamorphic crust (ρ=2850kg/m3).The presented crust-scale 3D structural model shows that the greatest thicknesses of Mesozoic–Cenozoic sediments (almost 17km) are not found in the north where the sub-sedimentary crust is thinnest, but farther south where the crust is thicker and the Moho quite deep. We causally relate the huge amounts of foredeep deposits overlying a Moho depression to a flexural response of the lithosphere to orogenic loading induced by the Brooks Range orogen in the south. Our 3D model provides an ideal base and reference for future numerical studies including reconstructions of the development from a passive margin to a foreland basin and simulations of the present-day thermal field of the basin.

Using Students' Sketches to Recognize Alternative Conceptions About Plate Tectonics Persisting From Prior Instruction

ABSTRACTShould instructors assume that students possess conceptual knowledge of plate tectonics when they reach a second college geoscience course? Five cohorts in a historical geology course over 5 y—a total of 149 students—completed an in-class assignment in which they drew sketches of plate boundaries with required annotations. Analysis of the sketches revealed that most students lack an explanatory mental model that links the locations of earthquakes, volcanoes, and magma generation to plate-boundary processes and hold a pervasive alternative conception of Earth's interior structure that does not distinguish between compositional and rheological boundaries. Students who drew sketches that illustrated the most alternative conceptions also scored lower on a beginning-of-the-course administration of the Geoscience Concept Inventory, showing that conceptual understanding of plate tectonics correlates with overall conceptual geoscience knowledge obtained during previous course experiences. In addition, students tracking to the historical geology course via an introductory physical geology course showed stronger conceptual understanding of plate tectonics than those choosing an Earth-system science prerequisite, with those students previously enrolled in both courses illustrating the fewest alternative conceptions.

Geoscience Education in the Boy Scouts of America

ABSTRACTBoy Scout geoscience education is not “desk” education—it is an informal, hands-on, real-world education where Scouts learn through activities, trips, and the outdoors, as well as in meetings and in the merit badge program. Merit badge requirements, many of which meet National Science Education Standards for Earth and Space Science, give boys foundational experiences and familiarity with geoscience topics. Earning a Geology merit badge at any location resulted in a significant gain of content knowledge (P < 0.001). The combined treatment groups for all location types had a 9.2% gain in content knowledge, but the amount of content knowledge acquired through the merit badge program varied with location. The longitudinal posttest scores, with a 15.0% increase from the attributed average pretest score, were higher than the posttest scores from any location except summer camp. No gains were seen in the control group; age and grade were not significant factors. Combining interview data with quantitative data indicates that Scouts who participate in the Geology merit badge are better prepared for school geoscience classes. Participation in the Geology merit badge provides geoscience experiences and “familiarity” with geoscience concepts that allow Scouts to create and retain geoscience knowledge.

The application of seismic shothole drillers' log data to petroleum exploration and development

Abstract The dearth of baseline, near-surface (<20 m) geoscience knowledge represents a practical and economic limitation to seismic exploration and petroleum development in remote and northern sedimentary basins of Canada. The compilation of 343 989 seismic shothole drillers’ logs from continental Northwest Territories and northern Yukon, in database and GIS formats, provides a large new source of lithostratigraphic data. Use of this previously disregarded data has enabled reconstructions and models of potential granular aggregate resources, massive and ground ice occurrences, geohazards, muskeg and drift thicknesses, and till facies. This information can be readily utilized to improve the efficiency and focus of environmental assessments, address issues of weathered zone static inferences for seismic exploration, better identify potential geohazards, and support the sustainable design and development of regional infrastructure.

Enhancing Geoscience Education Within a Minority-Serving Preservice Teacher Population

ABSTRACTThe University of Texas Institute for Geophysics and Huston-Tillotson University collaborated on a proof of concept project to offer a geoscience course to undergraduate students and preservice teachers in order to expand the scope of geoscience education within the local minority student and teacher population. Students were exposed to rigorous Earth science materials, geoscientists conducting cutting-edge research, headliner topics, and pedagogical approaches to teaching. An evaluation of the data reveal that the course received mixed, but overall positive reviews and that student performance was mixed. Pre- and posttest results indicate that students made only modest gains. Half of the students performed at levels that matched our expectations and will be able to apply the geoscience knowledge and skills that they learned in an elementary school setting. The course contributed to the preparation of minority teachers to teach Earth science in Texas, filling a critical need. The authors, in collaboration with a minority-serving institution and as part of the preparation for a preservice teacher program, benefited from the experience; they subsequently applied the lessons learned to a program of professional development for minority-serving science teachers, the TeXas Earth and Space Science (TXESS) Revolution.

Structural and stratigraphic architecture of Australia's frontier onshore sedimentary basins: the Western Officer and Southern Carnarvon basins, Western Australia

During the past five years, the Onshore Energy Security Program, funded by the Australian Government and conducted by Geoscience Australia, in conjunction with state and territory geological surveys, has acquired deep seismic reflection data across several frontier sedimentary basins to stimulate petroleum exploration in onshore Australia. This extended abstract presents data from two seismic lines collected in Western Australia in 2011. The 487 km long Yilgarn-Officer-Musgrave (YOM) seismic line crossed the western Officer Basin in Western Australia, and the 259 km long, Southern Carnarvon Seismic line crossed the Byro Sub-basin of the Southern Carnarvon Basin. The YOM survey imaged the Neoproterozoic to Devonian western Officer Basin, one of Australia's underexplored sedimentary basins with hydrocarbon potential. The survey data will also provide geoscientific knowledge on the architecture of Australia's crust and the relationship between the eastern Yilgarn Craton and the Musgrave Province. The Southern Carnarvon survey imaged the onshore section of the Ordovician to Permian Carnarvon Basin, which offshore is one of Australia's premier petroleum-producing provinces. The Byro Sub-basin is an underexplored depocentre with the potential for both hydrocarbon and geothermal energy. Where the seismic traverse crossed the Byro Sub-basin it imaged two relatively thick half graben, on west dipping bounding faults. Structural and sequence stratigraphic interpretations of the two seismic lines are presented in this extended abstract.

Basin resource management frameworks: 4D geoscience information, modelling and knowledge systems to allow the informed assessment and management of earth resources

Abstract In the 21st century, sedimentary basins are moving rapidly from single-use zones–such as petroleum–to highly complex, vertically and laterally stratified, multiple-use zones. Several independent industry and community sectors, such as petroleum, water, geological carbon storage, coal seam methane and geothermal, will be competing for access to, and the use of, limited pore space and the resources within it. These sectors are often in direct conflict, for example geothermal energy production and geological carbon storage (GCS) are almost mutually exclusive. Geothermal is also in competition with the water sector (agriculture, communities etc) for the right-to-produce fluids. This new environment requires an innovative and proactive response from government, one in which the relative value and benefit of a wide variety of known and potential resources can be quantitatively assessed, and thereby managed, for the benefit of the State. This requires the building of robust and high-resolution geoscience information and knowledge systems which support the informed management of basins as multiple use zones, thus enabling the GCS, geothermal, petroleum and water sectors to co-exist and prosper. These basin resource management frameworks must be constructed at a regional-scale to allow assessments to be made of potential impacts and relative values of all relevant earth resources. As part of the Victorian Government’s geological carbon storage assessment, GeoScience Victoria’s VicGCS initiative has been collating, interpreting and integrating a wide-range of disparate geoscientific data from the onshore and offshore Gippsland Basin, the premier geological carbon storage location in Australia. The data include the distribution and properties of sedimentary horizons and faults (including the construction of basin-scale 3D models), rock property data, fluid compositions (water, hydrocarbons etc) and fluid flow properties, pressure data, reservoir data and extensive investigations of containment, to build highly complex and predictive geoscience models. In addition to providing a quantitative and agreed means of assessing and managing earth resources, the models provide data and ideas which dramatically improve the understanding of the current and undiscovered resource inventory. The basin resource management framework for the Gippsland Basin provides government with the management tool-kit and knowledge necessary to develop an informed strategy to manage the basin’s pore space and other resources, in order to maximize the benefit from each resource and to minimize potential conflicts between competing resource sectors. This knowledge will also facilitate the gazettal of GCS acreage, GCS roll-out, and provide the basis for monitoring the basin through the GCS life-cycle. For example, through sufficient understanding of fluid migration in the basin, it is possible to monitor plumes of injected CO2, as well as the far-field effects of the injected plumes (e.g. formation pressure and the water table) across the entire basin. The regional or basin-scale knowledge required by government complements the focused and much more site-specific studies undertaken by industry.

Wives and daughters of early Berlin geoscientists and their work behind the scenes

The lives and work and accomplishments of three women, Clementine Helm Beyrich, Clara Ehrenberg and Ina von Grumbkow Reck are described. All three were writers who in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries significantly contributed to the field of natural history and palaeontology even though they were not academically trained. Their work included the spread of general knowledge of geosciences including technical processes among women (C. Helm), the description and drawings of new microorganisms and curation of a major micro-palaeontological collection with several thousand type specimens (C. Ehrenberg) and the maintenance of logistics for two major expeditions to Iceland and to East Africa, the latter involving large-scale excavations for dinosaurs that are still among the highlights of the Berlin Natural History Museum's exhibition today.

Communicating Environmental Geoscience

Why don't people listen to us? Why do they continue to make mistakes, flying in the face of common geoscience knowledge? Some answers to these common, perpetually frustrating questions may emerge from reading Communicating Environmental Geoscience , a compendium of papers edited by Dave Liverman, Chris Periera, and Brian Marker. This volume contains 16 chapters written by authors from 10 countries and is an outcome of the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) Commission meeting held in Nottingham in 2006. Many of the authors, through their previous experiences with the “Geoindicators” and “Geosciences for Environmental Management” initiatives of the IUGS, and the “Geohazards Working Group” of the Geological Society of London, have developed concepts of material that should be communicated to other professionals, policy makers, politicians, and the public. At the same time, they have recognized with frustration that limited understanding exists among these groups, and that policy decisions are often made without effective input from geoscientists. Rather than leaving the discussion as an insolvable problem, the IUGS Commission and the editors decided to ask for contributions detailing strategies, setbacks, and successes in conveying geosciences messages to audiences. Communicating Environmental Geoscience is one result of this effort. The volume is aimed at the environmental geoscientist who wants or needs to communicate with people outside the discipline, defined as widely as possible. In order to communicate effectively, skills are required, but that goal raises several …

Datasets for inquiry in geoscience: a design model

This article describes the results of a proof of concept project, Data Sets for Inquiry in Geoscience (DIGS), funded by the National Science Foundation. The three goals of the project were to: 1) study the impacts on student learning of web-based supplementary curriculum modules in which secondary students used real geoscience datasets, visualisations, and software tools to conduct investigations within two fundamental topics of study, climate change and plate boundaries; 2) develop designs and prototypes of technology-based performance assessments to provide evidence of students' geoscientific knowledge and inquiry skills; 3) develop extension scenarios to overview examples of curriculum modules and performance assessments that could be developed for other Earth Science standards and curriculum topics. The article describes the features of the climate module curricular activities and performance assessments that can serve as models for additional topics. The project promoted and tested knowledge and inquiry strategies not typically addressed in geoscience curricula and assessments.

O módulo São José do Rio Preto do Projeto Geo-Escola - uma experiência educacional diferenciada

The development of Geo-Escola Project in the municipality of Sao Jose do Rio Preto, situated in the northeast part of the Sao Paulo State, is an educational experience on Geology. It is a study of case. The activities allowed the participants – teachers of Science and Geography– to adopt Geosciences as the basis of getting a professional knowledge which, as citizens, they need as well. Geology is essentially a historical science of Nature, an inheritance of human knowledge that aims at the understanding of the materials, processes and products of planetary evolution in all senses. Several kinds of educational resources were used, especially fieldwork, allowing the participants to create an identity with the world around them, a result of singular importance. The research has exposed concepts revealed in theory as long as it also allowed one to identify and to visualize the related concepts and to get a deeper understanding of teaching. It has also legitimated the overall process: if the investigation adopts the premise that Geoscience knowledge plays a special role in an education for sustainability of life as a starting point, the obtained results allow to confirm it.

O módulo São José do Rio Preto do Projeto Geo-Escola – uma experiência educacional diferenciada

The development of Geo-Escola Project in the municipality of Sao Jose do Rio Preto, situated in the northeast part of the Sao Paulo State, is an educational experience on Geology. It is a study of case. The activities allowed the participants - teachers of Science and Geography- to adopt Geosciences as the basis of getting a professional knowledge which, as citizens, they need as well. Geology is essentially a historical science of Nature, an inheritance of human knowledge that aims at the understanding of the materials, processes and products of planetary evolution in all senses. Several kinds of educational resources were used, especially fieldwork, allowing the participants to create an identity with the world around them, a result of singular importance. The research has exposed concepts revealed in theory as long as it also allowed one to identify and to visualize the related concepts and to get a deeper understanding of teaching. It has also legitimated the overall process: if the investigation adopts the premise that Geoscience knowledge plays a special role in an education for sustainability of life as a starting point, the obtained results allow to confirm it.

Connecting GEON: Making sense of the myriad resources, researchers and concepts that comprise a geoscience cyberinfrastructure

Simply placing electronic geoscience resources such as datasets, methods, ontologies, workflows and articles in a digital library or cyberinfrastructure does not mean that they will be used successfully by other researchers or educators. It is also necessary to provide the means to locate potentially useful content, and to understand it. Without suitable provision for these needs, many useful resources will go undiscovered, or else will be found but used inappropriately. In this article, we describe an approach to discovering, describing and understanding e-resources based on the notion that meaning is carried in the interconnections between resources and the actors in the cyberinfrastructure (including individuals, groups, organizations), as well as by ontologies and conventional metadata. Navigation around this universe is achieved by implementing the idea of perspectives as dynamic, conceptual views (defined by SPARQL-like queries against an OWL schema) that not only act as filters, but also dynamically promote and demote concepts, relationships and properties according to their immediate relevance. We describe a means to represent a wide variety of interactions between resources using the notion of a knowledge nexus, and we illustrate its use with resources and actors from the Geosciences Network (GEON) cyberinfrastructure community. We also closely link browsing and visualizing strategies to our nexus, drawing on ideas from semiotics to move resources and connections not currently of interest from the foreground to the background, and vice versa, using a new form of adaptive perspective. We illustrate our ideas via ConceptVista, an open-source concept mapping application that provides rich, visual depictions of the resources, cyber-community and myriad connections between them. Examples are presented that show how geoscientific knowledge can be explored not only via ontological structure, but also by use cases, social networks, citation graphs and organization charts; all of which may carry some aspects of meaning for the user.

A taxonomy of geospatial services for global service discovery and interoperability

Geospatial service taxonomies represent the knowledge about the characteristics of geospatial services from the enterprise, computational, information, engineering, infrastructure, or technology viewpoints. This paper presents a lightweight taxonomy of geospatial services with the aim of promoting the global sharing of and interoperability among geospatial service instances. This taxonomy focuses on the knowledge connected with service interoperability. As a hierarchical taxonomy, it consists of six layers: service category, service type, version, profile, binding and uniform resource name (URN), from the root down to the leaves. Each layer is composed of classification nodes, with each node identifying one classification concept. Each concept, with a concrete semantic meaning, can be used to classify service instances. The application of this classification scheme to the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) Component and Service registry is also introduced. The results of this study may lead to the further development of service taxonomy to thoroughly capture the knowledge about geospatial services. The lessons learned may be useful to others representing and manipulating geoscientific knowledge.

Developing a geoscience knowledge framework for a national geological survey organisation

Geological survey organisations (GSOs) are established by most nations to provide a geoscience knowledge base for effective decision-making on mitigating the impacts of natural hazards and global change, and on sustainable management of natural resources. The value of the knowledge base as a national asset is continually enhanced by the exchange of knowledge between GSOs as data and information providers and the stakeholder community as knowledge ‘users and exploiters’. Geological maps and associated narrative texts typically form the core of national geoscience knowledge bases, but have some inherent limitations as methods of capturing and articulating knowledge. Much knowledge about the three-dimensional (3D) spatial interpretation and its derivation and uncertainty, and the wider contextual value of the knowledge, remains intangible in the minds of the mapping geologist in implicit and tacit form. To realise the value of these knowledge assets, the British Geological Survey (BGS) has established a workflow-based cyber-infrastructure to enhance its knowledge management and exchange capability. Future geoscience surveys in the BGS will contribute to a national, 3D digital knowledge base on UK geology, with the associated implicit and tacit information captured as metadata, qualitative assessments of uncertainty, and documented workflows and best practice. Knowledge-based decision-making at all levels of society requires both the accessibility and reliability of knowledge to be enhanced in the grid-based world. Establishment of collaborative cyber-infrastructures and ontologies for geoscience knowledge management and exchange will ensure that GSOs, as knowledge-based organisations, can make their contribution to this wider goal.

The event bush as a semantic-based numerical approach to natural hazard assessment (exemplified by volcanology)

The event bush is a new formalism for organizing knowledge in various fields of geoscience, particularly suitable for hazard assessment purposes. Acting as an intermediary between expert knowledge and the well-established field of Bayesian belief networks, the event bush allows at the same time a variety of other applications, linking geoscientific knowledge to the field of artificial intelligence and uniting probabilistic, deterministic, and fuzzy approaches. In this paper, we present basic principles, mathematical formulation, guidelines for application, and examples, including the connection with Bayesian belief networks. Further development of the method will include spatial and temporal modelling, implementation in mapping in GIS medium, formalization by means of predicate logic, definition of variable states in BBNs by membership functions based on the event bush semantics, and other applications.