E-Geoscience Research and Practice-A Case Study of the Establishment of Northeast Asia Joint Scientific Expedition and Cooperative Research Platform

摘要

E-Geoscience (electronic Geo-science) is a new research mode of the earth science in the future after the theoretical analysis, experimental observation and simulative computing. It will reform the traditional research pattern of the geoscience and improve the efficiency and quality of the study. However, as a newborn thing, until now, there is no clear and established understanding about its essence, characteristics and development tendency. Based on analysis of current research and authors' practice, this paper will put forward the definition, connotation and technical framework of e-Geoscience in detail for the first time. In essence, EGeoscience is the combination of the information environment for the geoscientific research and all research activities based on it. Its overall framework should consist of four hierarchical layers from bottom to top, i.e. informationized infrastructure, geo-resources, functional services and application tools layer. The foundation of eGeoscience is the next generation information infrastructure, such as high-speed internet, supercomputing clusters, and its core lies in georesources sharing, while its ultimate goal is cooperative research. Based on analysis, the research mode of e-Geoscience has obvious improvement in the four aspects compared with the traditional one. Meanwhile, the authors will design and develop the prototype of the application system of eGeoscience—Northeast Joint Scientific Expedition and Cooperative Research Platform. This platform can provide not only geo-data, literatures and models, but also a series of tools for scientific exploration, such as for virtual observation of the exploration area, exploration routes and points preSelection on web GIS, field collection system based on PDA and so on. The practice proves that eGeoscience can largely lower the cost and improve the efficiency of multinational, inter-disciplinary scientific exploration.