Deep-time Digital Earth (DDE) is the first IUGS-recognized big science programme. DDE is committed to providing geoscientific products, data, models and tools to the global community, and to assist countries to realize the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the UN in 2015. The overall mission of DDE is to harmonize global earth evolution data and share global geoscience knowledge. The long-term vision of DDE is to transform the earth sciences by encouraging a data-driven research paradigm. Currently, DDE has 27 Founding Members and 27 Working and Task Groups (WTGs). 

Reasons for the initiation of DDE

Geoscience as a scientific discipline stands at a point where it can benefit from the great advances that data could provide: in analysis, computation and visualization.

It could benefit in the way that atmospheric and theoretical physics have benefitted, allowing access to big data techniques to solve some of the big physical science questions of the Earth. Over the last twenty or thirty years access has improved to large databases hosted at established data centres, such as the U.S. Geological Survey (e.g., Eros data centre, http://eros.usgs.gov/), NASA (e.g., Atmospheric Science Data Centre, ASDC, at NASA Langley Research Centre (http://eosweb.larc.nasa.gov/), NOAA (e.g., National Geophysical Data Centre, NGDC, http://www.ngdc .noaa.gov/), UCAR (e.g., Data for Atmospheric Research, http://rda.ucar.edu/), EPOS (https://www.epos ip.org/), and others.

Although availability of these sensor-based data is crucial for the research goals of geoscientists, a vast amount of data generated by individual scientists and institutions is still not accessible; even its existence may not be known. The situation has a parallel in medical and health science where data have become more widely interoperable and accessible. Many of these advances in medical science were made in the post-war period in the United States where computing began to be used on hitherto unavailable data to solve problems in health care and medicine. This effort of gathering data, improving interoperability and accessibility, has meant that, as in some of the physical sciences, new techniques of artificial intelligence and machine learning have brought enormous advances in diagnosis and epidemiology, for example in the successful machine recognition of cancerous cells in microscope slides. Geoscience data have some of the characteristics of health and medical data from the early Twentieth Century in that historical observations, or legacy data that are typically found in what is referred to as the “long tail” (e.g., Sinha et al., 2013) are needed to advance science. Making these data available on demand is one of the highest priorities to examine the Earth system through time. Typically, sensor data are used to measure, evaluate, and model present-day Earth processes, but are unable to capture past processes and events. Development and modelling of more complex, temporal views of the Earth requires many data types, instruments, techniques, and computational services. Two fundamentally different types of data management are required: those generated by the long tail of science, and those generated by sensor technologies. The latter reside in well-designed and curated data centres, with the only significant challenge lying in evolving technologies that may make the earlier data unusable or inaccessible. In contrast, the long tail of geoscience is more unstructured and inherently more heterogeneous. DDE’s vision is to transform Earth science by connecting and harmonising long tail deep-time data ‘islands’ to support broad-based scientific studies relevant to the entire Earth system.

This harmonisation is now possible through the digital revolution, but new protocols, platforms and programs are needed to secure compatible and interoperable databases, so that the vast amounts of existing (and new) deep-time geoscience data can be linked. Big data analytics, internet cloud computing, data mining, machine learning and artificial intelligence, alongside traditional geological research will lead to innovation in understanding the Earth’s evolution and applications including the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The philosophical approach of DDE will be to provide the ‘wiring’ that will connect disparate and distributed deep-time database ‘islands’.

DDE’s Organizational Structure

Under the direction of its Governing Council (GC), oversight of implementation of GC decisions by the Executive Committee (EC), advice and support of the Scientific Committee (SC), research and development initiatives of the International Research Centers of Excellence (RCEs) and the Working and Task Groups (WTGs) and day-to-day operations of an international Secretariat, DDE is practicing open science and focusing on the earth’s evolution, aiming at constructing the cloud infrastructure to achieve the globalization of scientific research, diversification of cooperative mechanisms, and enhance and encourage mutually beneficial interactions between information and earth sciences. The detailed research framework is as follows: 

Science: Focus on billions of years of the earth’s evolutionary history, and make breakthroughs in major, fundamental scientific questions of deep-time evolution of materials, life, climate and geography.

Knowledge: Establish a standardized Knowledge Graph that covers all fields of solid-earth science and facilitate the creation of nodes at disciplinary, country and other desired levels to provide the basis for the integrated sharing, accurate analysis, and intelligent extension of the various scientific and technological knowledge and resources.

Data: Establish a foundation for FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable) data availability for global research and development cooperation in earth sciences using the most up-to-date technology, standards, mechanisms and ensuring safety and respect for intellectual property rights.

Communication: Using multimedia approaches, expanding interactive channels between the science community and the public for using data, knowledge, research findings and insights and showcase how DDE projects and initiatives contribute to addressing the challenges faced by the world in this new millenium.

Digital Platform: Cyberinfrastructure that delivers earth science knowledge, data, models, and computing power to address global earth science issues and societal needs.

Benefits of DDE

If you are an individual scientist, DDE aims to help you:

·        Obtain knowledge and emerging trends hidden in data

·        Gain access to a “one-stop” link to massive data resources

·        Bridge hashrate (computational power/second) and algorithm gaps

If you are a representative of an international organization, program, or scientific research institute, DDE aims to help you:

·        Activate, update and energize your data,

·        Enhance your organization’s ability to integrate earth and information sciences,

·        Enhance your organization’s public awareness and participation in sustainable development through an increased use of data-driven research, analyses and interpretation of findings.

If you are a government representative, DDE could help by:

·        Promoting your country’s regional research and international cooperation in the earth sciences.

·        Establishing a DDE Research Center of Excellence (RCE) catering to local, national, regional and/or international research and development needs supported by up-to-date data and technology resources and expertise.

·       Experimenting data-driven research in earth sciences to meet the needs for realizing priority SDGs.

THE WAY to join DDE

If you are a provider of data, computing power, services, manpower and funds and policy maker:

·       Learn about DDE's concept, vision, mission and operational modes and become a member or partner through planning and implementing collaborative initiatives.

·       Negotiate with the Governing Council of DDE, sign an agreement with DDE and carry out mutually agreed programs and projects for sharing data for research and development.

If you are a scientist:

·       Comply with DDE's Statutes, DDE IP Policy and protocols and conditions for using DDE services such as the DDE Platform and products and outputs.

·       Once the GeoGPT services, a collaborative effort between DDE and the Zhejiang Lab, China, has been launched as an open access technology and tool, respect the conditions and protocols defined by the service providers in its use for scientific research, academic pursuits, teaching, educations and increasing public awareness to demonstrate the significance of solid earth sciences for addressing contemporary global challenges.

CONTACT

DDE Secretariat: secretariat@ddeworld.org