RCN: Building a Sediment Experimentalist Network (SEN)

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Our dynamic landscape evolves as sediment travels a path through mountain slopes, rivers, and deltas in events like landslides, floods, and hurricanes. In nature, these processes typically occur over vast length and time scales, making them difficult to study directly. Laboratory sedimentary experiments enable improved control and observation of these Earth-surface processes. However, such investigations often occur in isolation, and there is little if any coordination for our scientific community. We will form a Sediment Experimentalist Network (SEN) to help integrate the efforts of sediment experimentalists and build a knowledge base for guidance on best practices for data collection and management. We will also facilitate cross-institutional collaborative experiments, and communicate with and educate the research community about data and metadata standards for sediment-based experiments. This effort will improve the efficiency and transparency of sedimentary research for field geologists and modelers as well as experimentalists.Major outcomes from SEN will be 1) creation of a Knowledge Base (SEN-KB), 2) coordination of Experimental Collaboratories (SEN-EC), and 3) integration of Educational efforts and Data standards development (SEN-ED) with tools for propagating new technology and methods. SEN-KB will be a collection of online resources for management and discovery of experimental data, metadata, analysis tools, methodologies, and other user-driven needs. SEN-EC will pilot infrastructure to foster multi-laboratory collaborations on experiments addressing broad and interdisciplinary grand challenges that are difficult to solve in a single laboratory: 1) extrapolation of experiments to natural systems and theory, 2) comparability of experimental results from disparate facilities, and 3) decoupling of external versus intrinsic processes observed in experiments. SEN-ED will provide training for data management through workshops and outreach for collecting and sharing experimental data. The project will facilitate access and use of new and existing data for a wide range of users in the experimentalist community and beyond toward modelers and field geologists.