EarthCube IA: Digital Rocks Portal: a Sustainable Platform for Sharing, Translation, and Analysis of Volumetric Data of Porous Media

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Recent advances in high-resolution imaging techniques have provided a wealth of 3D datasets that reveal the microstructure of rocks and soil. It is now possible to conduct numerical experiments and construct detailed models to simulate phenomena such as fluid flow or mechanical deformation in the pore spaces of these materials. Popularly called digital rock physics, this research framework can inform important decisions in environmental, civil and petroleum engineering, as well as address key geological questions. Examples include: containing the spread of toxins or harmful bacteria in watersheds; designing safe dams; improving recovery of hydrocarbons, and understanding the history of rock formation. Researchers, however, have trouble storing and sharing these datasets due to their large sizes and the lack of standards to characterize image types and associated information about them. This impedes scientific cross-validation of the simulation approaches, and limits the development of studies that span length scales from a micrometer (a millionth of a meter, the size of individual pores and grains making up a rock) to a kilometer (the level of a geological basin or aquifer). Studies spanning length scales are important to characterize rock and flow properties at the kilometer scale that often depend on complex processes on the micrometer scale.This project will continue the development of a sustainable, open and easy-to-use repository called the Digital Rocks Portal (https://pep.tacc.utexas.edu/). The portal will: a) organize the images and related experimental measurements of diverse porous materials; b) improve access to porous media analysis results for a wider community of geoscience and engineering researchers not necessarily trained in computer science or data analysis; and c) enhance productivity, scientific inquiry, and engineering decisions founded on a data-driven basis. The portal will incorporate software tools and pipelines that make it easier for researchers from EarthCube and beyond to organize, publish and reuse data, and for educators to quickly visualize and illustrate concepts for a wide audience. For data sustainability and continuous access, the portal is implemented within the reliable High Performance Computing Infrastructure deployed and maintained at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) at The University of Texas at Austin, which is supported by The University of Texas System Research Cyberinfrastructure (UTRC) initiative. We will coordinate development and data integration with the High-Resolution X-ray Computed Tomography Facility at The University of Texas at Austin (UTCT), one of the largest academic imaging facilities in the nation. Finally, an important contribution will be the development of a business model for sustaining long-term preservation of important datasets obtained from research investments.