OneGeology

• Uganda and Tanzania are now serving their WMS.

• Minutes from the 8th Technical Working Group meeting.
• XIV Congreso Latinoamericano de Geología y XIII Congreso Colombiano de Geología, 31 de Agosto al 2 de Septiembre de 2011

• Russia rocks up with the world's biggest jigsaw piece, 15 August 2012

• Russia rocks up with the world's biggest jigsaw piece, 15 August 2012

• Detailed information about OneGeology and related events at the IGC, Brisbane 5th – 10th August 2012

• The OneGeology/GeoSciML workshop recently held in the Denver Federal Center, Lakewood on 3 - 4 May 2012 was a great success. Representatives from over 30 State Geological Surveys participated and at least 6 had map services running live before they end of the workshop. The other participants left with the information they needed to implement their web services when they got home. A possible follow-up workshop focusing on USGS mappers is being discussed.
• OneGeology received an award for 'Excellence in Geospatial Standards Implementation' from the GEOSPATIAL WORLD POLICY AWARDS.

  The award was presented to Ian Jackson, OneGeology Executive Secretariat, at the GEOSPATIAL WORLD FORUM 23-27 April 2012 in Amsterdam.

Introduction to the News Media for Irish Geoscientists

Ian Jackson presented OneGeology at the Introduction to the News Media for Irish Geoscientists communicating geosciences event in Dublin on the 17 May.

• Event information from the GSNI
• Event flyer
• Event information from the Royal Irish Academy

• The OneGeology/GeoSciML workshop recently held in the Denver Federal Center, Lakewood on 3 - 4 May 2012 was a great success. Representatives from over 30 State Geological Surveys participated and at least 6 had map services running live before they end of the workshop. The other participants left with the information they needed to implement their web services when they got home. A possible follow-up workshop focusing on USGS mappers is being discussed.
• OneGeology received an award for 'Excellence in Geospatial Standards Implementation' from the GEOSPATIAL WORLD POLICY AWARDS.

  The award was presented to Ian Jackson, OneGeology Executive Secretariat, at the GEOSPATIAL WORLD FORUM 23-27 April 2012 in Amsterdam.

• OneGeology Kids now available in Russian!

Introduction to the News Media for Irish Geoscientists

Ian Jackson presented OneGeology at the Introduction to the News Media for Irish Geoscientists communicating geosciences event in Dublin on the 17 May.

• Event information from the GSNI
• Event flyer
• Event information from the Royal Irish Academy

• 3 - 4 May 2012 — USGIN/OneGeology Workshop, Lakewood, CO, USA
• USGIN/OneGeology Workshop Prep and Introduction to GeoSciML Portrayal, 17 April. More information from State Geothermal Data
• OneGeology Kids now available in Russian!
• 10 - 13 April 2012 — The Digital Soil Mapping conference.
  Onegeology has been invited to present at this conference and an abstract has been submitted.
  Bruce Simons, GeoScience Victoria, will be presenting on behalf of OneGeology.

• OneGeology announces 'The OneGeology Best Application Competition'. The prize is a free registration for the 34th IGC. We look forward to receiving your entries.
• Preparations are in hand for OneGeology at the IGC.

• OneGeology announces 'The OneGeology Best Application Competition'. The prize is a free registration for the 34th IGC. We look forward to receiving your entries.
• The Steering Group will hold a teleconference meeting on 15th February to discuss the progress with incorporation.
• Preparations are in hand for OneGeology at the IGC. The deadline for the submission of abstracts for 34th IGC is approaching - 17 February. OneGeology has plans for sessions within Theme 5.3 under the major Geoscience Information Theme. These sessions will cover strategic, organisational and operational topics - e.g. progress with national services and related issues, including regional developments (e.g. OneGeology-Europe) and OneGeology technical/informatics and scientific topics. Please prepare and submit your abstracts before 17 February.

• The latest OneGeology newsletter is now available.
• New services recently registered in the OneGeology Portal include Serbia (1 WMS, 2 layers) and Bosnia and Herzegovina (1 WMS, 1 layer). To register your geological map services, please follow the guidance provided in the WMS cookbook.

OneGeology at the 34th International Geological Congress

Brisbane, Australia,
5 – 10th August 2012

OneGeology will be present and visible in many ways at the forthcoming IGC.

OneGeology announces 'The OneGeology Best Application Competition'. The prize is a free registration for the 34th IGC. We look forward to receiving your entries.

OneGeology accreditation

The following countries have been awarded OneGeology accreditation for their geological map service provision in the Portal. Many other countries have applied and we will be processing these or provide feedback as soon as possible. Apply for accreditation, we look forward to your application.

1. Austria
2. Belgium
3. Czech Republic
4. Denmark
5. Estonia
6. Finland
7. France
8. Germany
9. Hungary
10. Ireland
11. Italy
12. Luxembourg
13. Norway
14. Poland
15. Portugal
16. Romania
17. Slovakia
18. Slovenia
19. Spain
20. Sweden
21. The Netherlands
22. UK

• The latest OneGeology newsletter is now available.
• New content: Geodiversity, explore Geodiversity and the ways in which it is protected and celebrated around the world in the form of GeoParks and World Heritage Sites
• 5 - 9 December 2011— American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting 2011
• 5 - 9 December 2011 — GIRAF workshop 2011

• 5 - 9 December 2011— American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting 2011
• 5 - 9 December 2011 — GIRAF workshop 2011

• 9 - 12 October 2011— 2011 Geological Society of America Annual Meeting
• 27 – 28 September 2011 — The 4th meeting of the OneGeology Steering Group was held in Tokyo. The minutes of this meeting will be available soon.

• OneGeology Accreditation Scheme: Romania is the first country to apply and gain OneGeology accreditation and many more applications have been submitted.
• OneGeology was a Keynote speech at the 7th symposium of the International Society on Digital Earth. Ian Jackson attended, the presentation was well received and there was a lot of interest in OneGeology.
• 27 – 28 September 2011 — The 4th meeting of the OneGeology Steering Group will be held in Tokyo.

• OneGeology launches new Accreditation Scheme: Details of the scheme and how geological survey organisations may apply to be accredited
• 23 - 25 August 2011: Australia, Perth — OneGeology in Keynote speech at the 7th symposium of the International Society on Digital Earth. Ian Jackson is attending.
• 29 August - 2 September 2011: Colombia, Medellin — Latin American Congress. Jose Mendia is attending.

• The minutes and actions from the latest OneGeology Operational management meeting are now available.
• An article has been published in the journal of the Mexican Academy of Sciences on OneGeology: Un planeta transparente: Año Internacional del PLANETA TIERRA, Ciencia, Julio-Septiembre 2011
• OneGeology is pleased to be officially associated with GIRAF, the Geoscience InfoRmation in AFrica network. We look forward to a positive and successful association
• We are pleased to report that the registered East Asia WMS services are available once more in the OneGeology portal. The Geological Survey of Japan's server that was hosting data services was damaged during the March 11 earthquake. The lost WMSs have been transferred to a new server and 5 datasets are now displaying in the portal. Many thanks to collegues at GSJ who have worked to getting the services back, it is great to see them again.
• Geographic Information conferences featuring OneGeology presentations
• OneGeology-Europe, the projects' achievements, Ian Jackson

OneGeology Portal update

A new update of the portal has just been released online.

Improved and new features include:

• Compliance with Firefox 4
• A print button has been added
• Some minor graphical improvements have been made to improve use (icons have been changed, links, properties of a layer, buttons...)
• The contacts information and the extent is now displayed in the properties of each layer.
• Some bugs have been fixed e.g. the save KML context button is now working
• The portal is now connected to geonetwork2.6
• A new button has been added to open the web page displaying the CGI vocabularies

The latest layers to be registered in the portal include:

• the Ontario Geological Survey 250k BEDROCK AND STRUCTURAL GEOLOGY WMS (end of April)
• the Romania service (end of March)

Work is ongoing on the services from Russia, Antarctica and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Events in Scotland, Edinburgh

• 1 July 2011 — the latest OneGeology Operational Management Group meeting, minutes will be available as soon as possible.
• 8 July 2011 — the latest OneGeology Technical Working Group meeting
• 10 - 16 July 2011 — 11th international symposium on Antarctic Earth Sciences. OneGeology featured in the Plenary speeches.

Events in Scotland, Edinburgh

• 27 June - 1 July 2011 — 2011 INSPIRE Conference
• 1 July 2011 — the next OneGeology Operational Management Group meeting
• 8 July 2011 — the next OneGeology Technical Working Group meeting
• 10 - 16 July 2011 — 11th international symposium on Antarctic Earth Sciences. OneGeology featured in the Plenary speeches.

• OneGeology Newsletter Issue 12

Short Course 515: Setting up a GeoSciML data service to publish your geological map data

OneGeology participants may be interested in one of the short courses to be run at the 2011 Geological Society of America Annual Meeting conference in Minneapolis:

(Registration opens in mid-June. We will post the registration link as soon as it becomes available).

Saturday, 8 October 2011, 08:00 - 17:00

Cost: $50; includes continental breakfast and lunch.

Organizers: Arizona Geological Survey (OneGeology participant and data provider),, AGI, and YES Network

This course is aimed at graduate students and early-career faculty who are doing geological mapping projects and are interested in online data publication. GeoSciML is a standards-based data format that provides a framework for application-neutral encoding of geoscience thematic data and related spatial data. Using GeoSciML, you will learn how to set up a GeoSciML data service so that you can publish your geological mapping data in a vendor-neutral format that will allow for data exchange and interoperability. We will implement a basic OGC Web Feature Service using GeoSciML with an example dataset and a software stack using free, open-source software (PostGIS, Geoserver). Participants are required to bring their own laptops that are equipped with a wireless connection.

• Check out the new Earth Processes section of the Kids pages with Gordon Glacier! See how water, wind, gravity and ice shape our world.
• New Zealand and Japanese earthquake and tsunami. Expressions of support and sympathy from the OneGeology global community

• OneGeology is featured in 'The updraft of GIS cloud computing' in Geoconnexion international Magazine, March 2011
• 2 - 4 February 2011 — National Science Foundation workshop in Denver, Colorado. "Geo-Data Informatics: Exploring the Life Cycle, Citation and Integration of Geo-Data" workshop (GeoData 2011)
• New list of up-coming events for OneGeology in the diary.
• If you know of any other events or meetings related to OneGeology, please email us so we can add it to the diary list.

• The date for the next Operational Management Group meeting is 1st July 2011 in Edinburgh.
• The Portuguese Program of Science, Technology and Innovation, with news articles and interviews discusses the OneGeology-Europe project; see the movie.

• The latest OneGeology newsletter is now available.
• OneGeology was highlighted at the GEO Ministerial Summit in Beijing in November 2010 and is featured in the GEO opening video, now available on YouTube.

OneGeology-AEGOS-GIRAF combined superworkshop

This superworkshop was held on 12 Jan 2011 at the CAG23 bringing together geoscientific information in Africa.

• Introduction
• Presentation — Sharing geological data and know-how

• The latest OneGeology newsletter is now available.

OneGeology-AEGOS-GIRAF combined superworkshop

Geoscientific information infrastructures in Africa: OneGeology-AEGOS-GIRAF 8–9 January 2011. This 1½ day superworkshop will bring together the three complementary initiatives of OneGeology, AEGOS and GIRAF to provide Geoscientific information and developments in Africa.

To register for this FREE workshop, please complete this form.

• The minutes from the 6th technical working group meeting in Ghana are now available.
• New publication: One Europe One Geology — Applying Geoscience for Society.

OneGeology-AEGOS-GIRAF combined superworkshop

Geoscientific information infrastructures in Africa: OneGeology-AEGOS-GIRAF 8–9 January 2011. This 1½ day superworkshop will bring together the three complementary initiatives of OneGeology, AEGOS and GIRAF to provide Geoscientific information and developments in Africa.

To register for this FREE workshop, please complete this form.

• OneGeology-Europe: Interview with Tim Haigh, Head of Group GMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security) at the European Environment Agency
• OneGeology Geospatial Portal — World's Geologic Survey Data Shared, Article on page 10 of Arc News from Esri 113 MB PDF
• New publication: One Europe One Geology — Applying Geoscience for Society.
• The agenda, minutes, actions and presentations from the latest operational management meeting are now available.
• The 6th Technical Working Group meeting will take place on 8 October in Accra, Ghana. The meeting will be hosted by the Geological Survey of Ghana at the SSNIT guest house Accra.

Launch of the OneGeology-Europe web Geoportal

On 27 October, in Paris, the closing event of OneGeology-Europe will take place. Experts from the Geological Surveys of Europe will explain how this innovative project can facilitate decision-making on land-use planning, and can be used to benefit the daily lives of European citizens.

More information.

• The 6th Technical Working Group meeting will take place on 8 October in Accra, Ghana. The meeting will be hosted by the Geological Survey of Ghana at the SSNIT guest house Accra.
• OneGeology-Europe awareness seminar — The European Environment Agency (EEA) in cooperation with EuroGeoSurveys and the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS) invites you to an awareness raising seminar on OneGeology-Europe on 13 September 2010.
• The latest operational management meeting has just been held. Minutes will be available soon.

• OneGeology newsletter issue 10, now available.
• The next operational management meeting, will be in Berlin on the 23rd August 2010.

• Latest on OneGeology-Europe, an INSPIRE testbed for semantic harmonisation of 'geology' data across Europe
• OneGeology newsletter issue 10, now available.
• The next operational management meeting, will be in Berlin on the 23rd August 2010.

• Geological applications using geospatial standards - an example from OneGeology-Europe and GeoSciML
• OneGeology newsletter issue 10, now available.
• OneGeology-Europe: Architecture, data model and web services - Presentation from 6th EUREGEO, Munich, 10/06/09
• Welcome to Malaysia, the latest country to join the OneGeology Initiative!
• Burkina Faso is the latest country to serve it's map data in the Portal.
• 1G Kids now available in more languages: Dansk | English | Русский | Slovenščina | Türkçe
• ESRI Grant Offer: To support participants of OneGeology, ESRI is offering one copy of the ArcGIS system to support the technical backbone of this infrastructure.

• CPRM (Geological Survey of Brazil) Newsletter - 20 May 2010, with news about OneGeology and the recent CPRM/Brazil collaboration in GIS capacity building meetings in Colômbia and Argentina in Portuguese
• 'OneGeology', the global geological jig-saw puzzle – concepts and contributions from Norway. - ICC conference, Santiago, Chile, 15-21 Nov 2009.
• Rapid Uplift - OneGeology Portal for viewing country geology maps - OneGeology mentioned once again on worldwide blogs
• Review of the Steering Group Meeting that took place on 15-16 April in Wellington.
• CPRM Newsletter 05 May 2010 in Portuguese
• Recent event: European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2010 in Vienna, 02 07 May 2010.
• GeoCanada Calgary – OneGeology will be presented in the session "GeoScience Information Management in a Spatially-Enabled Online World" with a talk entitled "OneGeology – improving access to geoscience information on a global scale" The conference is taking place between 10 – 14 May.

UN Group of Experts on Geographical Information Management USA, New York

10 - 11 May 2010

This includes an oral presentation "Global Geographical Information Management: Some institutional and data sharing issues in integrating geospatial and statistical data" which will include OneGeology presented by Fraser taylor of the International Steering Committee for Global Mapping (ISCGM).

• Upcoming event: European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2010 in Vienna, 02 07 May 2010.
• The minutes for the Steering Group Meeting that took place on 15-16 April in Wellington will be available soon.

• OneGeology web map service (WMS) cookbook is now available as a set of webpages.

• OneGeology newsletter issue 9 now available.
• OneGeology kids was released last month and has received good reviews and feedback.

  This part of the OneGeology eXtra pages is devoted to young children under 10 years old as a basic and fun introduction to geology around the world.

• The BBC are coming to talk about OneGeology in relation to a 2 part series on the Earth on 10 February.
• Two trips to Paris for OneGeology in February. Attending/presenting at CGMW General Assembly and IUGS Executive meetings.
• Just announced: The Spanish International Co-op. and Dev. Agency is to fund a course - Web dissemination of geological maps in Columbia SA in April; more details will be added to the website when information becomes available.

• OneGeology kids is launched!
• OneGeology now launched on Twitter and Blogger.
• YES Network :: YES_EGU2010
  A roundtable session at the YES conference will focus on building the awareness of geoscience applications for the greater public as a means to strengthen the “One Planet One Future” vision.

OneGeology ESRI Grant Offer accepted

OneGeology Management and Steering Groups have agreed an offer from ESRI, a world leader in GIS (geographic information systems) for spatial modeling and mapping software, to support participants of OneGeology. This agreement will offer one ArcGIS system per participating country along with maintenance (technical support and upgrades) for one year (12 months) at no cost. Eligible participants for the OneGeology Grant Program are the Geological Surveys who participate in the OneGeology program.

Further details will follow once the grant has been set up.

The OneGeology Secretariat wish you and your loved-ones peaceful holidays and good health in 2010.

Thank you for your continued support and enthusiasm.

• Arizona Geology Linking our US data network with OneGeologyEurope
  Linking our US data network with OneGeologyEurope. Dr Kristine Asch from the German geological surveyFederal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources ...

IYPE Planet Earth Lisbon Event 2009

OneGeology was presented and had an exhibition stand at the IYPE Planet Earth event (PEL2009) in Lisbon, Portugal on 20 – 22 November 2009. The worldwide event was held to highlight the main results of the IYPE and to launch new initiatives building on the IYPE legacy.

Dr Komac, Director of the Geological Survey of Slovenia, presented the progress and future plans or OneGeology. OneGeology was also highlighted in many other presentations and is a successful flagship project of the International Year of Planet Earth.

The successful PEL2009 brought together scientists, politicians and industrial leaders to celebrate the closing of the International Year of Planet Earth triennium (2007-2009), to evaluate the results of the IYPE and to look ahead. This forward look dominated the event and a new initiative, The Planet Earth Institute, was built on the legacy of the International Year of Planet Earth.

Other news

• OneGeology, Ispra presenta la mappa geologica online
• Welcome to Andorra, Azerbaijan, Costa Rica, Georgia, Iraq, Macedonia and Serbia, the latest countries to join the OneGeology initiative. The number of countries involved is now 113!

• OneGeology Newsletter Issue 8
• OneGeology Portal of Worldwide Geological Map Data, NASA article
• Implementing GEOSS: OneGeology unites global geological map data, Group on Earth Observations article

IUGS representation on the OneGeology Steering Group

OneGeology would like to welcome Professor Alberto Riccardi, President of IUGS, who has accepted the Steering Group's invitation to participate, representing IUGS, as an ex-efficio member on the OneGeology Steering Group. This position will be alongside current ex-efficio members representing UNESCO and CGMW. The Steering Group feel that participation of IUGS would be extremely beneficial and strengthen the Group.

Professor Riccardi said: 'In accepting your invitation I am pleased to inform you that the IUGS will do its best to contribute, with the help of its members and bodies to strengthen the OneGeology initiative.'

New countries

There are currently 111 nations participating in OneGeology. The most recent countries to participate in OneGeology include:

• Andorra
• Costa Rica
• Georgia
• Iraq
• Macedonia

We warmly welcome them and look forward to seeing their data on the portal soon.

• New diary of events related to OneGeology

• OneGeology: Relationships with Associated International Bodies
• New diary of events related to OneGeology
• Minutes of the latest Operational Management Meeting are now available
• Australia's Amazing AuScope
• OneGeology - Un nuevo mapa geológico de La Tierra
  An article about the Operational Management Group meeting in Buenos Aires was published. You will find it at page 4 of Newsletter IDE Iberoamérica.
• The Intellectual Property Rights and Data Use Policy is now available.
• Georgia, Iraq and Macedonia join the OneGeology initiative.

• Following Management Team discussions about Intellectual Property Rights and Data Use, a report was written, agreed and ratified by the Steering Group. The resulting Intellectual Property Rights and Data Use Policy is available.

• Newsletter issue 7 now available.
• "Science, technology, and innovation proceed more rapidly and more cost-effectively when insights, costs, and risks are shared; and so many of the challenges that science and technology will help us meet are global in character." - U.S. President Barack Obama
• Links to new articles from across the globe discussing OneGeology.
• Turkey joins the OneGeology initiative, increasing our number of countries to be 103 involved!
• "The prime focus of OneGeology is improving access to geological data and scientific advancement. A guiding principle is that OneGeology should be as free from political and commercial influence as possible."
• The new version of the portal is now available at http://portal.onegeology.org. This version is compliant with Firefox 3, IE6 & 7, Opera, Chrome, and Safari. The 'view layers' tool and the 'catalogue of registered services' have been modified and categorised into global regions with subdivisions for easier use.
• Updated WFS cookbook V2_1.2 now available.
• Forthcoming Operational Management Group Meeting will be held in Argentina on 2-3 July. Details now available.

• Documents from the latest Steering Group Meeting are now available.

• OneGeology newsletter issue 6 now available.
• Steering Group Members appointed Representatives for each of the six global regions have now been appointed to the OneGeology Steering Group.
• Steering Group Meeting: Paris, April 2009. The First Steering Group Meeting will take place on 23 – 24 April 2009, in Paris.

• OneGeology breaks the 100 mark!
  At the GIRAF workshop on Geoscience Information in Windhoek, Namibia in March, 6 more African countries agreed to participate in OneGeology. The 100th country to participate was Burkina Faso.
• The 5th Technical Working Group meeting will take place on Friday 25 September 2009 from 14:00 to 17:00 at the offices of the Geological Survey of Canada, in Québec hosted by GeoSciML consortium member Eric Boisvert.
• Minutes and actions from the 4th technical working group meeting in Copenhagen.
• GIRAF 2009: Geoscience InfoRmation in AFrica
  A series of GeoSciML and GeoInformation workshops, lectures and courses will take place on 16th - 20th March 2009 at the Geological Survey of Namibia. GeoSciML forms the basis of OneGeology data and this workshop may be useful to anyone hoping to serve their map data to the OneGeology Portal.

• OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium) announce election of new Directors.
  View Press Release at http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/the-ogc-elects-directors,719381.shtml
• La vuelta al mundo en 20 libros
  El País (España) - Madrid,Spain
  Un ejemplo de por dónde va la ciencia es el proyecto OneGeology, donde los servicios geológicos de 81 países pintan las rocas que hay bajo nuestros pies, ...
• New — Quick-Guide to using the OneGeology Portal: Getting started
• New — A brief overview of the OneGeology Portal and its potential uses

• GIRAF 2009: Geoscience InfoRmation in AFrica
  A series of GeoSciML and GeoInformation workshops, lectures and courses will take place on 16th - 20th March 2009 at the Geological Survey of Namibia. GeoSciML forms the basis of OneGeology data and this workshop may be useful to anyone hoping to serve their map data to the OneGeology Portal.
• Press release from the Department of primary industries, Victoria, Australia.
• Next technical working group meeting - 21 January.

• Australia releases new surface geology map. Surface geology map creates history.
• New Surface Geology Map Breaks Fresh Ground For Tasmania
• OneGeology Newsletter Issue 5
• OneGeology talks in China -
  Ian Jackson, OneGeology Executive Secretary and coordinator, recently met with Drs Zhang Hongtao, Jiang Shijin and Liu Fengshan of the China Geological Survey (CGS) in Beijing to discuss CGS involvement in OneGeology. OneGeology very much welcomes the China Geological Survey and their participation in the Technical Working and Operational Management Groups.