The use of eXtensible Markup Language (XML) schema for geoscience data exchange is an improvement on non XML data formats because the XML format is partially self-documenting and provides common methods for parsing files, obtaining their structure and transforming them to alternative formats. The British Geological Survey (BGS) believes it is important to develop some common ML for the exchange of generic geoscience information. If communities share a common data transfer model for their domains of interest, data exchange becomes even easier and more likely to take place efficiently. To address this need the BGS is proposing the development of GeoSciML, a geoscience information markup language, as an application of the OpenGIS Consortium's (OGC) Geography Markup Language (GML), building upon the applied geoscience domain focused eXploration and Mining Markup Language (XMML). We are aiming for an open standard with the support of bodies such as the International Union of Geological Sciences' (IUGS) Commission for the Management and Application of Geoscience Information and the OGC. This paper illustrates the proposed approach with some initial development work to cover geoscientific domains of particular interest, such as boreholes, text and structural geology. The development process has been iterative, with successive prototypes incorporating the comments of experts in each geoscientific domain. We propose that development be extended to the wider geoscience community with the developing schemas and documentation available on a collaborative web site. (C) 2005 Marcus Sen. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
