1. Investigators: Chaitan Baru, Randy Keller, Dogan Seber, Krishna Sinha, Ramon Arrowsmith, Boyan Brodaric, Karl Flessa, Eric Frost, Ann Gates, Mark Gahegan, Vladik Kreinovich, Alan Levandar, Mian Liu, Bertram Ludaescher, Maria Luisa Crawford, Chuck Meertens, John Oldow, Phil Papadopoulos, Paul Sikora, Robert Smith Institutions & Partners: San Diego Supercomputer Center, Arizona State University, Bryn Mawr College, Digital Library for Earth System Education, ESRI, Geological Survey of Canada, Kansas Geological Survey, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, NASA Goddard, NAVDAT, CalIT2/OptIPuter, Penn State University, Rice University, San Diego State University, Southern California Earthquake Center, UNAVCO, University of Arizona, University of Idaho, University of Missouri, University of Texas at El Paso, University of Utah, United States Geological Survey, Virginia Tech Research Objectives: Geoscientists study a wide range of phenomena, e.g., the interplay between tectonics and the evolution of sedimentary basins; the role of mountain building in the evolution of climate and life; broader predictive understanding and modeling capabilities of geologic hazards such as earthquakes and volcanoes; the 4D reconstruction of the Earth through time; and, management of natural resources. These problems require multidisciplinary research to discover relationships among Earth science disciplines, and depend on the community's ability to construct interoperable geoscience information systems. GEON is developing this cyberinfrastructure for the solid earth sciences to share, link, mediate, and analyze multidisciplinary datasets. The system will enable new interdisciplinary research, store distributed data sets and tools, allow users to search and integrate data not only by name, but by also concepts; and provide high-end computational resources and a customizable analysis and research environment (workflows) for the community. Approach: The GEON infrastructure is organized into a set of service layers. Dataset search and integration are enhanced via ontologies. This requires semantic data registration, i.e., information about GEON-registered data sets, ontologies, and their linkages are stored in a GEON repository. The GeoWorkbench builds upon scientific workflow technology for complex analysis pipelines that bring together data access, querying, and general computational steps. Visualization and mapping services can be realized both through open source as well as commercial tools. GEON is a TeraGrid application and jobs submitted through the portal can be run on the Grid. Core Grid Services: Authentication, monitoring, scheduling, catalog, data transfer, replication, collection management, databases Registration Services Data Mediation Services PORTAL (login, myGEON) Physical Grid: RedHat Linux, ROCKS, Internet, I2, OptIPuter Indexing Services GeonSearch GeoWorkbench Workflow Services Visualization & Mapping Services Find distribution & U/ Pb zircon ages of A-type plutons in VA! How about their 3-D geometry ? How does it relate to host rock structures? Information Integration Geologic Map GeoChemDB GeoPhysDB GeoChronology Foliation Map “Complex Multiple-Worlds” Mediation Database mediation Data modeling RAW Data KR: ontologies, concept spaces domain knowledge Significant Results: GEONgrid is online: ROCKS compute and data nodes (DB2, SRB, ArcInfo, …), currently 13 sites including 4 clusters GEON portal online (GridSphere, JSR-168 compliant portlets) Dataset registration system, including ontology registration Ontology-enhanced search and data integration Geologic map integration system Concept-based queries and analysis Scientific workflow technology (Kepler) Joint community & IT/KR based ontology building Cross-project collaborations (BIRN, SEEK, SCEC, …) Industry collaborations (ESRI, IBM, … ) coming soon: 1Gbps UCSD  NASA Goddard (via OptIPuter) Broader Impact: GEON caters primarily to the needs of the solid earth geosciences community and will enable scientists to share and data and computational resources for new and interdisciplinary research. GEON technologies will also be usable by other communities due to a standards based, open system architecture. An education and outreach program (e.g., joint Geo/IT workshops; planned summer institutes etc) brings GEON technology and results to a wider community. www. GEON grid.org ITR-0225673 GEON: A R e s e a r c h P r o j e c t t o C r e a t e C y b e r i n f r a s t r u c t u r e f o r t h e G e o s c i e n c e s