Dr. Dan Sandiford1, Dr. Sara Polanco2, Xiaodong Qin2,3, Dr. Andrés Rodríguez-Corcho2, Lauren Ilano2, Christopher Alfonso2, Julian Giordani2,3, Ben Mather2,3, Dr. Nigel Rees6, Dr. Rebecca Farrington5, Dr. Tim White4, Mike Lynch4
1University Of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia, 2University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia, 3earthByte, Sydney, Australia, 4Sydney Informatics Hub, Sydney, Australia, 5AuScope, Melbourne, Australia, 6National Computational Infrastructure, Canberra, Australia
Biography:
Dan is an Earth Scientist specializing in geodynamics: geo (as in the rocky Earth); dynamics (as in how and why stuff moves). Some problems I've worked on include: interpretation of earthquakes within the lithosphere (particularly slabs and mid-ocean ridges); the forces that drive subducting plates; rapid changes in plate motion.
Abstract:
The field of numerical modeling of Earth’s systems is playing an instrumental role in understanding mineral resources and geo-hazards. Such models often require specialized computational resources (HPC), can take days-to-weeks to run, and produce large volumes of heterogeneous output data. The lack of curation of these numerical models and community standards hinders our ability to access, interpret and build on published numerical models. Here, we present a first-of-its-kind open science framework that aims to establish a community practice to increase the usefulness of numerical modeling outputs and leverage computational resources. M@TE provides a digital platform that encapsulates the entire model development process: from setup, to model output, and analysis. This supports discovery, data preservation, reproducibility, and reuse, with flexibility for users with different levels of expertise. M@TE has a human-browsable, machine-searchable, user-friendly front end (https://mate.science/), and a back-end GitHub organization (https://github.com/ModelAtlasofTheEarth) and model output repository targeted to expert users. Contributions to M@TE are handled by GitHub automation workflows that guide contributors through the process of documenting their models, ensuring that they meet community standards, validating metadata and creating DOIs. M@TE provides a platform for a much wider appreciation of Earth processes and numerical modeling, particularly to industry stakeholders, professional geoscientists and educators. Furthermore, M@te is creating a single platform that will advance the interoperability of digital twins required to address the current environmental crisis.