Batllo, Josep
2021-04-19 17:55:22
--- Apologies for cross-posting ---
Dear Colleagues,
We are pleased to announce the upcoming Special Issue of Geoscience Data Journal on the topic "Old Records for New Knowledge".
This special issue is intended to share the accumulated experience with legacy data in the different fields of Geosciences. We hope it will give visibility to specific databases dealing with legacy data (from simple scanned sources to those containing elaborated products) and improve our preservation and dissemination tools, our analysis methods and, ultimately, to further research results.
Seismological sciences have been pioneering the recovery and reuse of historical and legacy data. Historical records, analog seismograms, legacy exploration data and a large amount of related materials show of great importance for present studies. Share our experiences and problems in preserving, distributing, accessing and use of such data with those developed and encountered in other branches of geosciences should foster new developments useful for a large community of researchers.
We would like to invite you to contribute to the upcoming Special Issue. All submissions will undergo the usual anonymous review to guarantee high scientific quality and relevance to the subject. Deadline for manuscript submissions is 31 August 2021. For more details, please visit:
https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/20496060
https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/pb-assets/hub-assets/rmets/2049-6060_GDJ/cfp/GDJ-old-records-for-new-knowledge-CFP-1614263820270.pdf
Also, the complete text of the call for papers is included at the end of this email.
Please feel free to circulate this announcement to people and groups interested in the topics.
The guest editors:
Josep Batlló
Hisashi Hayakawa
Victoria Slonosky
Rick Crouthamel
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Studying a changing world requires observations going back in time to extend and contextualise our latest scientific knowledge. Moreover, reanalysis of old geoscience data, ranging from deep Earth interiors to the solar-terrestrial environment, in the light of our present knowledge has become an important tool for understanding topics such as solar and geomagnetic variability, climatic change, tectonics and earth rotation among others. Extreme natural events, such as magnetic storms, hurricanes, rainfall, floods, or earthquakes can also be analyzed in specific detail and depth from historical records.
Old records are usually discovered in non-digital form and are often contained in unique analog documents, such as written paper documents, etchings and drawings, instrument recordings such as seismograms, photographs, or even architectural structures. Historical information may also be retrieved from documentary evidence such as narrative sources and legal-administrative institutional documentation (e.g. chronicles, newspapers, private and official protocols and correspondence, account books, etc.). In addition to the numerical data, these historical documents become categorical data.
But old records are in danger. Within the fields of meteorology and hydrology alone, it is estimated that the world loses over 500,000 historic hydrometeorological observations daily due to factors such as loss due to fire, flood, or deterioration of the medium on which the observations are stored (i.e. paper, microfiche/microfilm, magnetic tape, glass, etc). Custodians of the data can be unaware of the value of, and the need to preserve, these data and their metadata. In most cases, the loss of these data and their metadata is permanent as there are often no backup copies. Once gone, these data are lost forever.
Techniques and methodologies for the preservation, dissemination, interpretation, homogenization, calibration, preserving of metadata such as instrumental details, and use of such legacy data, as well as for their present scientific use are important topics for advancing our understanding of the changing Earth and of past extreme events. Legacy data, their preservation and dissemination are important for the progress of Earth System Science. Different approaches have been devised to deal with different data and problems. Even when the data themselves have been consulted and preserved, their metadata such as the instrument details or calibration methods have not always been fully described as this knowledge is assumed to be widespread in the community. Decades later, this knowledge is lost when the instruments are decommissioned. This special issue encourages the authors to record such ‘meta data’ (especially for old data) for future generations.
This special issue is intended to share the accumulated experience with legacy data in the different fields of Geosciences, including the difficulties and obstacles faced in collecting and producing historical geoscience datasets. Contributions ranging from data papers covering historical geoscience datasets, or data services papers which describe best practices, descriptions of their meta data, development of systems techniques tools which address data collection, sharing, analysis, revisions, instrumental details, or visualizations in the historical geosciences are encouraged.
Dear Colleagues,
We are pleased to announce the upcoming Special Issue of Geoscience Data Journal on the topic "Old Records for New Knowledge".
This special issue is intended to share the accumulated experience with legacy data in the different fields of Geosciences. We hope it will give visibility to specific databases dealing with legacy data (from simple scanned sources to those containing elaborated products) and improve our preservation and dissemination tools, our analysis methods and, ultimately, to further research results.
Seismological sciences have been pioneering the recovery and reuse of historical and legacy data. Historical records, analog seismograms, legacy exploration data and a large amount of related materials show of great importance for present studies. Share our experiences and problems in preserving, distributing, accessing and use of such data with those developed and encountered in other branches of geosciences should foster new developments useful for a large community of researchers.
We would like to invite you to contribute to the upcoming Special Issue. All submissions will undergo the usual anonymous review to guarantee high scientific quality and relevance to the subject. Deadline for manuscript submissions is 31 August 2021. For more details, please visit:
https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/20496060
https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/pb-assets/hub-assets/rmets/2049-6060_GDJ/cfp/GDJ-old-records-for-new-knowledge-CFP-1614263820270.pdf
Also, the complete text of the call for papers is included at the end of this email.
Please feel free to circulate this announcement to people and groups interested in the topics.
The guest editors:
Josep Batlló
Hisashi Hayakawa
Victoria Slonosky
Rick Crouthamel
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Studying a changing world requires observations going back in time to extend and contextualise our latest scientific knowledge. Moreover, reanalysis of old geoscience data, ranging from deep Earth interiors to the solar-terrestrial environment, in the light of our present knowledge has become an important tool for understanding topics such as solar and geomagnetic variability, climatic change, tectonics and earth rotation among others. Extreme natural events, such as magnetic storms, hurricanes, rainfall, floods, or earthquakes can also be analyzed in specific detail and depth from historical records.
Old records are usually discovered in non-digital form and are often contained in unique analog documents, such as written paper documents, etchings and drawings, instrument recordings such as seismograms, photographs, or even architectural structures. Historical information may also be retrieved from documentary evidence such as narrative sources and legal-administrative institutional documentation (e.g. chronicles, newspapers, private and official protocols and correspondence, account books, etc.). In addition to the numerical data, these historical documents become categorical data.
But old records are in danger. Within the fields of meteorology and hydrology alone, it is estimated that the world loses over 500,000 historic hydrometeorological observations daily due to factors such as loss due to fire, flood, or deterioration of the medium on which the observations are stored (i.e. paper, microfiche/microfilm, magnetic tape, glass, etc). Custodians of the data can be unaware of the value of, and the need to preserve, these data and their metadata. In most cases, the loss of these data and their metadata is permanent as there are often no backup copies. Once gone, these data are lost forever.
Techniques and methodologies for the preservation, dissemination, interpretation, homogenization, calibration, preserving of metadata such as instrumental details, and use of such legacy data, as well as for their present scientific use are important topics for advancing our understanding of the changing Earth and of past extreme events. Legacy data, their preservation and dissemination are important for the progress of Earth System Science. Different approaches have been devised to deal with different data and problems. Even when the data themselves have been consulted and preserved, their metadata such as the instrument details or calibration methods have not always been fully described as this knowledge is assumed to be widespread in the community. Decades later, this knowledge is lost when the instruments are decommissioned. This special issue encourages the authors to record such ‘meta data’ (especially for old data) for future generations.
This special issue is intended to share the accumulated experience with legacy data in the different fields of Geosciences, including the difficulties and obstacles faced in collecting and producing historical geoscience datasets. Contributions ranging from data papers covering historical geoscience datasets, or data services papers which describe best practices, descriptions of their meta data, development of systems techniques tools which address data collection, sharing, analysis, revisions, instrumental details, or visualizations in the historical geosciences are encouraged.
