Volcano Databases

Abstract:

Databases facilitate synthesis of observations collected by entire communities of researchers within and across disciplines. Linking volcanological data poses significant challenges because different data types are often collected with different formats (e.g., seismic data, geochemical analyses, still or motion imagery, satellite remote sensing, and narrative reports). During the last decade, the Smithsonian’s Global Volcanism Program (GVP) has launched three major expansions to incorporate and/or link new types of data within the Volcanoes of the World database (VOTW) that are available via the GVP website: volcano deformation data, emissions data, and links to physical samples in the National Rock and Ore Collections. The addition of those data to VOTW culminated in the 2016 launch of “Eruptions, Earthquakes, and Emissions” (“E3”). E3 is a research and education application, presenting a time-lapse view of global eruptions and earthquakes since 1960 and volcanic sulfur dioxide emissions since 1978. In the last 5 years, GVP has begun systematically linking geochemical sample analyses to specific eruptions with the goal of studying global patterns in composition, eruption frequency, and eruption magnitude. The narratives contained in the Bulletin of the Global Volcanism Network (BGVN) and the USGS/Smithsonian Weekly Volcanic Activity Reports (WVAR) contain a wealth of information often not captured in other sources. Beginning with a recent USGS Powell Center study (focused on 47 volcanoes in Latin America), GVP is now converting narratives into event catalogs. To enable additional studies using volcano imagery, GVP is recaptioning and auditing its image collection, and associating photographs with specific eruptions and processes. Finally, GVP uses webservices to share data with and link to external partners (e.g. Interdisciplinary Earth Data Alliance (IEDA/DECADE portal, Earthchem, IRIS, UNAVCO). The challenge of the coming decade is to efficiently and sustainably link the disparate sources of volcano data.