AVRE builds new digital geoscience research tools
The AuScope Virtual Research Environment (AVRE) is bringing together Australian universities and publicly funded research agencies to explore new applications and technologies in geoscience research. Image: Photo by Ryan Quintal on Unsplash edited by AuScope.
AuScope’s Virtual Research Environment (AVRE), Australia’s home of geoscience data and tools, is on a mission to foster collaboration and make Australian research FAIR. This NCRIS enabled program creates tools that benefit researchers across disciplines and facilitates collaboration between emerging and established scientists and institutions. Discover AVRE’s Build Program (AVRE Build) impact over the last three years.
What is AVRE Build?
The AVRE Build Program (AVRE Build) promotes collaboration projects with Australian universities and publicly funded research agencies. It allows the geoscience community to explore new applications and technologies to support geoscience research. The projects listed below are tackling all stages of design and development and have lowered the barriers, both legal and financial, to collaboration.
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The AuScope Geochemistry Network (AGN) explores how we can better organise and coordinate geochemistry laboratories and data. In collaboration with AVRE Build, the AGN team has launched The Lab Finder, an online platform to enable users to discover laboratories, their equipment, analytical capabilities, and custodian contact information. This Cloud-hosted web application allows users to identify the techniques most suited to their research based on a researcher-centric approach.
The AGN Lab Finder is an adaptation of the Technique Finder originally developed by Intersect for Microscopy Australia. The AGN researchers' close collaboration and direct involvement in the technical design process allowed AGN to build a purpose-built product and satisfy AGN-specific technical requirements.
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In collaboration with researchers from the seismology group at the University of Melbourne, the AVRE Build team has created a new way to monitor and model earthquakes. The Seismic Network Design Web App (SENSI) allows Australian researchers to collate data and model earthquakes on all scales.
This open-access, cloud-based application enables testing of seismic networks before and during deployment. The utility of this has been demonstrated in the Gippsland region in Victoria, Australia, where the University of Melbourne is using SENSI to optimise seismic monitoring at both local and regional scales for academic and industry purposes.
The use of open-access technologies to develop SENSI by CSIRO and the University of Melbourne has demonstrated the potential to create comprehensive seismic monitoring solutions that achieve target outputs cost effectively.
The research, operations, and seismic monitoring infrastructure development carried out by the University of Melbourne were supported by Australian National Low Emissions Coal Research and Development, a grant from the Education Infrastructure Fund administered and coordinated by CO2CRC, and AuScope.
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Low-elevation aeromagnetic surveys, acquired on a large scale by Geoscience Australia and State and Territory Surveys, map the subsurface and are the basis for many geological studies across Australia. Researchers can now investigate survey data via the new Magnetic Component Symmetry (MCS) Analysis Tool. This application will improve analysis and interpretation studies that will derive new insights into Australia’s subsurface geology.
In collaboration with CSIRO’s Ore Body Potential Fields team, the AVRE Build team developed MCS as a web-based application to seamlessly integrate with Geoscience Australia’s Geophysical Archive Data Delivery System (GADDS). AVRE Build developed this tool from the existing Geophysical Processing Toolkit (GPT) and EASI Hub software. The developed application provides tools for survey data visualisation, data subsetting, anomaly selection, and graphical display of results.
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The Australian and international geoscience community uses reflectance spectral signatures of reference mineral samples to efficiently identify and characterise mineral groups. Applications range from regional mineral exploration using spaceborne technologies to identifying waste minerals encountered in ore processing plants and soil classification for land use management.
The National Virtual Core Library (NVCL) has initiated the creation of an accessible collection of reflectance spectral signatures acquired from validated reference mineral samples. This online spectral reference library (SRL) aims to support the geoscience community with high-quality and validated library spectra required for rapid mineral characterisation. The resulting application has brought the NVCL Mineral Spectral Library in line with modern technologies, significantly minimised maintenance and operational costs, and is in high demand among geologists and mineralogists.
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Geosciences, including geology, continue to evolve and advance with the advent of new technologies and numerical methods, many of which have adopted Cloud technologies. Creating a research environment for The Australian National University (ANU) provided the inspiration to build the Scalable Cloud Research Environment. This platform gives students access to the necessary software, computational power, storage, and a flexible interface for configuring, modifying and running numerical codes.
The AVRE Build team collaborated with ANU to develop the cloud-based research environment using Jupyter Hub. Some essential requirements included a persistence layer so that data and computed results can be saved and shared, independent software environments for each student or researcher that can be instantiated easily on demand, and software (i.e. numerical codes) that can be pre-configured as necessary. This flexible and powerful research environment has contributed to the improvement of teaching methods that introduce students to the use of modern Cloud technologies.
AUTHORS
Dr Pavel Golodoniuc
Edited by Philomena Manifold
FURTHER READING
AuScope AVRE
A technical version of this story can be found here