ITR: Computational Environment Infrastructure with Applications to Mid Ocean Ridge Research: The 'Virtual Research Vessel' Prototype

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The East Pacific Rise (EPR) is currently our best-studied section of fast-spreading mid-ocean ridge, yielding a wealth of observational data and results spanning many scientific fields. However, this information has not yet been fully utilized. Most of it exists in noninteractive form (e.g. journal publications) or as incompatible datasets and models. To make the most of this data, scientists will need a wide range of sophisticated programming support to coordinate the use of data, computational tools, and numerical models across distributed networks of computers. This project will develop that support.Technically, this project will develop the computational infrastructure needed to support data sharing, tool composition, and model coupling for the use of large scale, interdisciplinary data archives. It will then apply that infrastructure to build a domain-specific environment called the Virtual Research Vessel 1 (VRV-1). The VRV-1 will facilitate the use of data, maps, and models related to the EPR. The project will address fundamental issues of integrated middleware for scientific data management and computational science. In particular, it will support data sharing by merging three technologies: geographic information systems, database management systems, and electronic notebooks. It will support tool composition through an extension of an existing electronic notebook. Finally, it will support model coupling by developing support for exploring model correlations and relationships at a very high, domain-specific level in a fast prototyping environment.