Wolfgang Kiessling1, Charles Copp2, Markus Doering3, Herman Goethals4, Lutz Hecht1, Jens Klump5, Heike Mewis1, Willem Renema6, Adrian Rissone7, Ralf-Thomas Schmitt1, David Smith7 & Fedor Steeman8.
1 Humboldt-University Berlin, Invalidenstr. 43, 10115 Berlin, Germany
2 Environmental Information Management, 8 The Paddock, Clevedon, BS21 6JU, United Kingdom
3 Botanischer Garten und Botanisches Museum Berlin-Dahlem, Freie Universität Berlin, Königin-Luise-Straße 6-8, D-14191 Berlin, Germany
4 Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Rue Vautier 29, B-1000 Brussels, Belgium
5 GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam, Telegrafenberg, D-14473 Potsdam, Germany
6 Naturalis, Darwinweg 2, 2333 CR Leiden, Netherlands
7 Natural History Museum, London, SW7 5BD, United Kingdom
8 Zoological Museum, University of Copenhagen, Universitetsparken 15, DK - 2100 Copenhagen Ø, Denmark
The first International Workshop on Mobilising Earth Science Data, held in Berlin, 14-16 July 2005, focused on scientific issues associated with the extension of the ABCD schema for the geosciences. Subjects included stratigraphy, minerals & rocks, lithology, meteorites, palaeontology and taphonomy. This workshop was very productive and successful in defining paleontological as well as mineralogical and geological extensions for ABCD. The extended version of ABCD will be called ABCDEFG (Access to Biological Collection Data Extended For Geosciences). The results have to be distributed to a wide audience so as to reach acceptance and confirmation as a standard for geological collection databases. It is planned to get ABCDEFG online and usable within one year. Details of the work so far may be viewed at: http://projects.naturkundemuseum-berlin.de/synthesys_activity_d/
SYNTHESYS Network Activity D is funded by the European Commission under the 6th Framework Programme.