2020 | Migration and Interface Building of the GeoROC Database

We are planning to migrate, technically update and scientifically expand the world’s largest geochemical database for magmatic rocks from the Max Planck Institute of Chemistry in Mainz to the Institut für Ge- owissenschaften (IfG), Goethe Universität Frankfurt. GeoROC was started more than 20 years ago by the MPI’s former Department of Geochemistry as a visionary project and one of the first geochemical databases worldwide. Today, the database holds 23 million analysis values of >500,000 volcanic and plutonic rocks and minerals from the entire globe, repre- senting the world’s largest database of magmatic rocks. GeoROC has been an online tool from the very beginning, freely available to the entire community. Thousands of scientific publications benefited from GeoROC, with a number of key publications using novel statistical approaches and were based exclusive- ly on GeoROC to unearth new knowledge and advance our understanding of geologic processes. The Geosciences are increasingly using and are relying on digital tools – as every other branch of sci- ence and indeed most of modern life do. A large number of global, national and local initiatives are cur- rently developing tools for these data-driven digital approaches. Among the most prominent are FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, reproducible) and interface developments for quick and intuitive data access combined with data visualisation, analyses and modelling. GeoROC already leads in database content; yet it urgently requires a major update regarding both the FAIR criteria and its interface access. Also, with the closure of the MPI Department of Geochemistry in 2007 time is running out for the search of a new home for GeoROC in another geoscience department, ideally in Germany. If no such new home can be found, the geoscience community is in danger of irrevocably losing its largest geochemical data- base at a point in time when the rest of science in Germany is starting to wake up to the digital age. This project aims to start the migration, technical update and scientific expansion (=interface en- hancements) of GeoROC. This will keep GeoROC physically located within the RMU framework and will strongly enhance the national and global visibility of TeMaS for everyone interested in magmatic petrolo- gy and geochemistry. The TeMaS label and a link on the start page of the new GeoROC website will bring TeMaS to the attention of thousands of GeoROC users each year.