Our mandate is to have the data and scientific results generated by all Supersites accessible through the GEOSS portal. This is a long term goal, since some Supersites do not use yet a digital data infrastructure for data sharing. Even where the infrastructures exist and are used, they contain only some data types (typically seismic, geodetic, geologic and remote sensing data) while other data types are excluded, due to various reasons.
Through GSNL the institutions which do not have access to national data infrastructures, could exploit open infrastructures established in other countries, at least until they acquire the capacities locally. For instance UNAVCO is supporting the GPS data sharing for the Hawai’i, Enceladus, Iceland, Marmara Supersites providing different access methods, from web interfaces, to direct ftp download, to REST web services. IRIS is providing access to digital seismographic data for most Supersites, EPOS is developing a full-spectrum infrastructure to distribute European Earth Science data, which will be used by the Iceland, Etna, Campi Flegrei/Vesuvius, Marmara and Enceladus Supersites. These infrastructures are open for use by other Supersites for the dissemination of their own data. In addition to these large infrastructures, some Supersites have developed specific data portals which in some cases allow also programmatic access to data using web services.
In addition to promote more efficient access to data, GSNL favors the sharing of experiences and best practices among the various Supersites to promote an overall improvement of data management methods and standards.
