About SedDB

What is SedDB?
SedDB is an evolving data management and information system for marine sediment geochemistry. It will provide new and novel access to data of fundamental interest to a wide range of research topics, from paleoclimate reconstruction to fluxes between the Earth’s surface and mantle. SedDB is expected to have a broad and profound impact on the application of the geochemical data set of marine sediments for science and education:

SedDB will provide easy on-line access to an integrated data set allowing researchers, teachers, and students to explore both data and metadata, and any subset of the data customized to their specific research problem or teaching project.
SedDB will preserve data that are currently in danger of being lost due to incomplete publication. This will provide new opportunities for more critical data and hypothesis evaluation and application of new data analysis methods to existing data, and it will reduce redundant efforts in data acquisition.
SedDB will ensure accurate documentation of metadata that are critical for proper evaluation of the data, and will guarantee their future validity and accessibility.
SedDB will allow integration of the geochemical data with other data types, either on the basis of individual samples, by linking chemical analyses to other sample data, or on the basis of entire data sets, through interoperability with complementary data systems, thus facilitating new multi-disciplinary approaches in data interpretation.

SedDB’s design is guided by community input provided by the workshop “Linking Information Systems in Marine and Terrestrial Geosciences: Sediment Geochemistry” held in summer 2004.

Read about the Rationale for SedDB

Development Phase I: Plans & Status
In 2005, SedDB received funding from the US National Science Foundation for its Development Phase I to build a ‘pilot’ version of a fully functional data management system that will demonstrate the power and impact of the SedDB vision to the community. Phase I will focus on the development of the data model, its application to a complete data set that will be compiled for three targeted and well-defined testbed themes, and the construction of an interactive query interface. The equatorial Pacific Ocean and the Central America and Izu-Bonin-Marianas margins were identified as the initial testbeds because these regions are of current great interest to communities studying low-temperature geochemistry, paleoceanography, and arc magmatism.

Responding to the needs expressed by the community, Phase I will also include tools for data visualization and analysis. For example, because depositional age is a fundamental aspect of sediments, there will be a special focus on handling time-series data, both within the database structure and with respect to user interface functionality.
Read about the Development Plans & Status of SedDB

System Specifications
SedDB will be modeled closely after the highly successful web-based igneous rock databases PetDB, GEOROC , and NAVDAT. These give investigators easy and fast access to comprehensive integrated global data sets over the web, allowing them to extract subsets of these data in any size within minutes via interactive interfaces where investigators or students can customize their queries according to their research problems or course projects. The integration of data distinguishes these systems from data archives or data catalogs that offer access only to individual data sets such as data tables from publications.

SedDB will contain the full range of analytical values for sediment samples from major and trace element concentrations to radiogenic and stable isotope ratios, and data for all types of material such as organic and inorganic components, leachates, and size fractions. It will include other relevant data, e.g. bulk density, which are essential for mass balance calculations and accumulation rates, and it will include a wide variety of supplementary data (metadata) that are relevant to describe both samples and analytical data for proper data evaluation and analysis. These metadata also constitute the criteria by which the user will be able to select and sort samples and chemical data while interacting with the database.

Team
The SedDB project is executed by a team of disciplinary scientists, information technology developers, and data managers who bring together a wide range of expertise and extensive experience in data management and marine and terrestrial geochemical studies. The research experience combined with active involvement in national and international community research programs such as DSDP, ODP, IODP, MESH, IMAGES, MARGINS, and data and sample management efforts such as EarthChem, SESAR, Marine Geoscience DS, SAMPLES (Sample Archiving and Management Plan for the Earth Sciences), SEDAC, and the World Data Centers will be used to design and develop a data management system that is well integrated into on-going efforts of cyber infrastructure development for the Geosciences.

SedDB is executed at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and the Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), both at Columbia University, with subcontracts to Oregon State University, Boston University, and Boise State University.
Get to know the SedDB Team

Management Structure
SedDB is managed as part of the Geoinformatics for Geochemistry Program, a new integrated organizational structure for NSF-funded data management activities carried out by the LDEO-CIESIN collaboration. The GfG Program was created as part of the implementation of a Project Execution Plan delivered to the US NSF in March 2006 to address the increased demands for accountability toward the community and the funding agency, community validation and involvement, and sustainability.
View the GfG Organizational Structure
Download the GfG Project Execution Plan (3.34MB)

Advisory Committee
An Advisory Committee was established in 2004 to meet annually and review progress of the project components of the Marine Geoscience Data System and partner marine geochemistry projects PetDB and SedDB. The committee provides advice on directions and priorities and encourages feedback from the broader science community.
Go to the Advisory Committee Website

Partners
The construction of SedDB benefits extensively from the natural synergies that exist with various cyberinfrastructure projects that the PIs and technical personnel are currently involved with, among them PetDB, EarthChem, SESAR, PaleoStrat, and the Marine Geoscience Data System.

SedDB is also working closely with other data management and geoinformatics efforts such as CHRONOS, Pangaea, the Janus database, and NGDC to underline the vision of SedDB as an integral part of the emerging Geoscience CI, contributing to the establishment of a broad network of data resources.

SedDB and PaleoStrat are joining forces to provide a master database for marine and terrestrial sedimentary geologic data. Learn more …