AASG data project called cornerstone of national geothermal effort

The National Geothermal Data System was described as the "cornerstone" of the nations geothermal program for the next few years, by the Dept of Energy's geothermal head, Dr. Jay Nathwani, this morning in Washington DC.

The Arizona Geological Survey is the prime contractor, acting on behalf of the Association of American State Geologists, on an $18 million project to deploy the NGDS across the country and populate it with state-specific data. There are 5 projects involved in NGDS, with combined budgets of $33 million

Jay spoke at the plenary session of the 3-day long annual Peer Review of the 200 geothermal projects DOE is funding.

We launched our project yesterday with a full partners meeting in DC. We have 46 states involved in "State Geological Survey Contributions to the NGDS." The big challenges in the next couple of months are is getting detailed annual work plans for each state in place and setting up preliminary web services to enable core network functions.

[co-posted at ArizonaGeology]

State geological surveys will deploy National Geothermal Data System

The geothermal data grant from the U.S. Dept of Energy Geothermal Technologies Program was officially awarded this past week to the Arizona Geological Survey, which is acting on behalf of the Association of American State Geologists.

Over the next 3 years, data relevant to geothermal exploration and development will be digitized and published online from 46 states in a web-based, distributed, interoperable National Geothermal Data System (NGDS).

The $18 million grant is the second largest one awarded by DOE for geothermal energy out of federal stimulus funds.

AZGS is already a partner in the Geothermal Data Coalition effort based at Boise State University to design and build the NGDS.

The new effort will deploy the network nationwide with a node in each state, and populate the NGDS with terabytes of state-specific data. The AZGS has been developing a collaborative data effort between AASG and the USGS for the past 3 years under the Geoscience Information Network (GIN). The data integration mechanisms in GIN will power the NGDS data discovery, access, and interoperability components.

Other partners on the new grant are the USGS, Microsoft External Research, and the petroleum industry consortium, Energistics, Inc.

[cross posted at Arizona Geology]