Geochemical data are pervasively acquired in the Earth, environmental, and planetary sciences, as they offer unique evidence for past and present processes in the natural world that advance scientific knowledge and enable solutions of societal relevance. But geochemical data today are difficult to reuse because of the heterogeneous and fragmented nature of the geochemical data landscape with incompatible data structures, inconsistent metadata, and disconnected databases. As new, data-driven and often interdisciplinary research approaches are rapidly expanding that promise to empower the next generation of scientific discoveries, the urgency for a new ecosystem of interoperable, machine-readable geochemical data is eminent. OneGeochemistry is an international initiative to promote data standards in geochemistry and advance a global network of geochemical data resources. OneGeochemistry has been pursuing a diverse array of strategic activities: engagement with data repositories, professional societies, science unions and associations, publishers and editors, funding agencies, government agencies, instrument manufacturers, and researchers; participation in the WorldFAIR project (https://worldfair-project.eu); providing open access to existing standards or best practices; and establishing an international governance for the initiative. The geochemical databases GEOROC, EarthChem, the Astromaterials Data System, and MetBase that participate in the OneGeochemistry initiative, are actively cooperating to harmonize their data models and create FAIR vocabularies for metadata that will enable interoperability between the systems and can be adopted more broadly. This presentation will provide an update on the status of activities and outcomes that pertain to technical and policy aspects of geochemical data standards.

The amount of digital subsurface and geoscience data has grown exponentially over the past few decades with many companies, researchers and government organizations dealing with rapidly growing Petabyte-scales of data. On the other hand, hardware, storage solutions, technical applications and data management utilities have not kept up with these developments. This has resulted in a big gap and hampers the use of AI and data-driven workflows in complex subsurface projects, be it in hydrocarbon exploration and development, geothermal energy projects, CCS, H₂-exploration & storage and the search for nuclear waste sites, but also integrated scientific research programs.

The Open Subsurface Data Universe (OSDU^TM) project aims to address these critical challenges and has already resulted in fundamental changes to the way data is managed. OSDU^TM is a consortium of over 230 companies and organizations that pool their expertise in geoscience, software development, data center management and associated services to address the challenges via an open-source and cloud-agnostic data platform. Government organizations, geological surveys and universities are also participating in the project. The main drivers behind geoscience data standardization and separating data from applications are the expected benefits for integration, simplification and automation of complex subsurface modelling and project workflows as well as the facilitation of AI/ML opportunities enabled via the data platform.

This talk will demonstrate why subsurface data and the OSDU^TM data platform will play a critical role in the energy transition towards net zero emissions with the subsurface as a key component - even after the era of hydrocarbons.

Domain-specific research data repositories are digital archives that manage and preserve research data (and/or software) from specific scientific disciplines. These repositories are designed to meet the unique needs of researchers in that particular domain. They foster new scientific innovations and ideas by means of sharing, storing, and reusing research data. Furthermore, domain-specific repositories have a special emphasis on:

• Metadata curation
• Standardized, domain specific, rich metadata
• Support of sharing and collaboration
• Community engagement

The metadata curation processes and workflows implemented by domain-specific repositories ensure quality and metadata enrichment. As a consequence, scientists can rely on well-structured, high-quality data publications that have been verified by domain experts resulting in enhanced reproducibility and reliability of research results.

Domain-specific repositories support sharing and knowledge transfer among scientists within their particular field of research. This promotes transparency, collaboration, and the potential for interdisciplinary research. Scientists can also discover and explore datasets contributed by their peers, enabling new insights and discoveries.

Here we present the role of domain-specific data repositories, their role for Open Science. Introducing GFZ Data Services, a research data repository for the Earth System Sciences, we also highlight our metadata tools. In place since 2006, GFZ Data Services is embedded at the intersection between researchers and the modern digital data curation world. We consult researchers and make sure that data and metadata are ready to use for data-driven research. By publishing throughout us, scientists benefit from improved data accessibility, collaborative opportunities, long-term storage and subsequently an increased impact.

QuARUm is a BMBF- and EU-funded research project that aims to develop a prototype for a low-code environment enabling the researchers to construct pipelines that objectively and automatically assesses the quality of analytical data. In geochemistry, increasing amounts of data become available via journal publications and in numerous data repositories. While current efforts are focused on improving the availability of data, verifying the quality of the published data is equally important. The latter one, however, is in most cases rather complicated or just impossible because important information is missing in the publication (e.g., limits of quantification, measurements of reference materials or precision and accuracy). The tool developed during QuARUm will assess data quality using available metadata, statistical methods, and sample-specific criteria. The prototype can be applied in-lab on self-produced data, data published in journal articles or directly to data repositories. Furthermore, the tool will be designed in a low-code environment as an open box, fully visible and modifiable by computer science laypeople.

We will present key aspects, application fields, a road map and the first results of our QuARUm project.

Physical samples are key elements in the geosciences, providing tangible evidence of geologic and environmental phenomena and often represent the source for scientific findings. The International Generic Sample Number (IGSN) is a globally unique and resolvable persistent identifier (PID) for physical samples. It links the sample with its online description and enables the unambiguous identification, location, and citation of samples in digital research infrastructures.

The FAIR WISH project, funded by the Helmholtz Metadata Collaboration HMC, aims to further standardise IGSN metadata and support scientists in describing their samples for IGSN registration via standardised metadata that are human- and machine actionable. The FAIR SAMPLES template enables the provision of rich sample descriptions for different Geo-Bio-Samples. The template is built as a modular Microsoft Excel spreadsheet to meet the practices of the broader research community. It includes controlled vocabularies to describe sample types, sampling methodology, material, etc., and integrates persistent identifiers (ORCID, ROR) to acknowledge the persons and organisations involved in the sampling process as well as links to text or data publications relevant for the samples. The template further represents the basis for semi-automated creation of metadata XML files that are required for IGSN registration.

Currently, the template is being tested by several heterogeneous projects in the field of Earth and environmental sciences. The data processing workflows and software developed in this project will be completed by the end of 2023 and may serve as a blueprint for other organisations aiming to implement standardised procedures for registering physical samples.