Geoscience Australia develops and maintains standards and procedures to ensure our datasets and products are consistently developed to a high standard and are fit for purpose.
We also contribute to the establishment and maintenance of nationally acceptable standards through the following endeavors:
We are the prime custodians of the national scale geoscientific databases. Many of our database models and data definitions have been adopted as standards by the private sector and state governments.
We maintain database lookup tables, also known as controlled vocabulary or authority lists, to classify and validate entries in the main database tables. Lookup tables provide standard terms to reduce duplication and errors as well as a standard language to facilitate transformation. Access our data and applications.
Geoscience Australia is a national authority on geological names including stratigraphic units and province names. The Stratigraphic Index of Australia (STRATINDEX), also stores information on published references to these units and is the repository for definition descriptions.
The Data Dictionary is a specification for the capture of geoscientific GIS data. It forms a foundation for the production of GIS data by specifying rules regarding the structure of such data.
Our symbol sets for geological maps contain specialised line and marker symbols for use in GIS software.
We validate our GIS datasets before they are released to the public. Up to 80 tests, mostly using a sampling regimen, are conducted to ensure data integrity. Tests are carried out for data completeness and correctness and, where appropriate, for compliance with Geoscience Australia's GIS data dictionary.
National and international efforts are currently underway to standardise the format and delivery of geological data exchanged via the internet. In 2003, the Commission for the Management and Application of Geoscience Information (CGI), a commission of the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS), established a working group to develop GeoSciML - a data model for exchange of geological map data, and an encoding of that data model based on GML (Geography Markup Language).
The GeoSciML data model is based on prior work carried out by North American, European and Australian geological surveys and research organisations. The current (2007) working group contains members from Australia (CSIRO, Geoscience Australia, Geoscience Victoria), USA, Canada, UK, France, Sweden and Japan. The Australian Government Geoscience Information Policy Advisory Committee (GGIPAC), representing all state, territory and federal geological surveys, have endorsed GeoSciML as the Australian geological data transfer standard.
In developing and maintaining national geoscience data standards, Geoscience Australia strives to consult as widely as possible with the geoscience industry. We aim for excellence in the provision of our standards and advice. The development and maintenance of our standards depends on cooperative effort and consultation with those who have an interest in the value and use of data standards.
We value your feedback. Please let us know how well we are achieving these standards.