AuScope Virtual Research Environment (AVRE)
Data, Visualisation & Analytics

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Detail of the AuScope Discovery Portal, one of AVRE’s data discovery and GIS visualisation tools.

Welcome to the AuScope Virtual Research Environment (AVRE), Australia’s home of geoscience data and tools that help scientists place the next pieces of our giant continental puzzle.

The AVRE is a rich ecosystem of Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR) data and tools contributed to by a diverse range of Australian research organisations, government geological surveys and the international community.

Data & tools

Over the last decade we have developed the AVRE architecture using open geospatial data and analytics web services and open data principles, gathering diverse data types – geochemical to geophysical, to build suite of data visualisation and analytics tools.

We continue to expand the range of data and tools available via the AVRE to support future research, including new and historical datasets. This is performed in multiple projects across the contributing organisations co-operating as part of the AVRE.

Visit the AVRE Store

What we’re working on

Our recent focus has been delivering the collaborative Data-Enhanced Virtual Laboratory (Geo-DeVL) with ARDC and NCI, an online AVRE repository of diverse and previously incompatible data collected by different national groups. We are now working on making magnetotellurics (MT) and passive seismic data available online via the AusPass portal.

We’re bringing diverse geoscience data together.

What The DeVL?

Achievements

Recent achievements for the collaborative DeVL project with ARDC and NCI between late 2017 – 2018 include:

Launch of an IGSN minting service allows researchers to assign each of their samples with an International Geo Sample Number (IGSN) and store sample metadata online for future research. Alongside the data, additional analytical tools will be made available in 2019.
Expansion of the IGSN minting initiative abroad and beyond geoscience, thanks to a $384k Sloan Foundation grant that has been awarded to Columbia University's Earth Institute. The team will work with ARDC, Datacite and CSIRO to help strengthen outcomes for environmental sciences, material sciences, agriculture, anthropology, archeology, and biomedicine.
Soft launch of the AusPASS data portal which makes Australian passive seismic data nationally and internationally. Developers at ANU are uploading new datasets weekly, and are keen to hear from seismologists who can test the system before final launch in the next six months.

New time series magnetotelluric (MT) datasets: 14x available via NCI (tutorials 1, 2) and 1x available via AusPASS ( tutorial).

Impact

AVRE has improved the availability and accessibility of comprehensive geoscientific data in Australia. Key impacts include $912M of realised value to mineral exploration (1), as well as $458M in gold discoveries and $35M per annum in mining efficiencies (2).

“For AuScope and other Earth science infrastructure, how information is generated, processed and used, and for what purpose(s), drives key impacts.
This can span from accelerating the discovery of new fundamental knowledge about the Australian continent, to realising important applications for the economy, society or the environment.” (1)

Aside from the key findings by Lateral Economics and CSIRO, the AVRE has been recognised by BOM in the Information Platform for Bioregional Assessments Phase One Information Architecture report (20-12-2012).

1 — Lateral Economics, 2016
2 — CSIRO, 2014

Future

We continuously work to enhance the quality, variety and volume of geoscience data, and provide leading edge tools to analyse research data from mine to continental scale.

From samples, to data, to analysis, to research publication, the AVRE can link and publish it all in real time, and in a cost effective way. Please get in touch if you have a collaborative data or analytics project in mind.