Data is at the backbone of our research discussions, conclusions and solutions to problems nature presents us with. Did the apple fall to the ground, once or twice? It always does.
In today’s age with use of the most advanced laboratory capability the (geo)science community produces data at an ever increasing level of precision, resolution and volume. E.g. 1000 geochronology dates a day using laser ablation ICP mass spectrometry systems at a 30 µm resolution with <5% precision, that is <1Gb. Large Hadron Collider (LHC) detectors generate about one petabyte of collision data per second (~1Mb per collision). Most of this analytical data is highly variable and lacking standardised community-agreed metadata.
The greatest challenge pertaining to laboratory analytical research is to collate, store and make these data publicly available in standardised and machine-accessible form. But do we have to? Do we want to?
This great debate puts the questions, problems, challenges and opportunities around geoanalytical research data to the center stage at EGU, a topic researchers from almost every scientific division are concerned with. Short opening statements, from a panel representing the Earth, Environmental, Planetary and Space sciences, are followed with a discussion on how to improve the situation for EGU members who work with and on laboratory analytical data.
Discussions can be around:
Community development of systems to facilitate easy and efficient research data management, and need for more user buy-in.
The push from publishers and journals who increasingly require access to the supporting data from a trusted repository prior to publication of manuscripts.
When should data, initially collected in a researcher’s private domain, become public?
The need for and lack of global standards, best practices and protocols for analytical data management and exchange in order for scientists to better share their data in a global network of distributed databases.
When to capture analytical data, raw (lab), reduced (private/collaborative), polished (publicised).
To ensure long-term impact of these data, they need to be efficiently managed and losslessly transferred from laboratory instruments in “Private” domains to a “Collaboration” domain, to the “Public” domain, complete with all relevant information about the analytical process and uncertainty, and cross-references to originating samples and publications.