Articles
The following article appeared in the AUS.GEO News 49 December 1998 issue
Database Standards for Mineral Exploration
Standards are a prerequisite for any successful digital information system, and ensure consistency in terminology and classification. Without standards, databases would cease to function properly, and users would be unable to efficiently and confidently retrieve data. Database standards also provide for the efficient transfer of data between organisations. Transforming data between systems which use different standards can be time-consuming and expensive, and often results in loss of information. Widely used database standards, therefore, benefit all industries which rely on large amounts of data and information, as does the exploration industry.
At the end of 1997, AGSO and Terra Search Pty Ltd collaborated in developing standard database coding systems for the use of attributes (such as lithology, minerals, etc.) in the mineral exploration industry. AGSO's codes were already widely in use amongst several companies, albeit modified in part for their own special requirements. Recognising that all our codes did not cover all the requirements of the field geologist, AGSO accepted an offer from Terra Search to use their expertise to add to our standard lists of costs and descriptors extra lithologies and rock descriptors relating to the exploration industry. These lookup tables of standard codes and descriptors are used in our databases, and are also part of Terra Search's Explorer 3 database management system.
AGSO's database lookup tables were placed on AGSO's web site in March this year (see AUS.GEO News 45, for April 1998, p. 10). An interactive program queries our corporate databases directly and displays the results as HTML. The HTML off the web, however, is not immediately transferable into a database or spreadsheet, and requires reformatting. Several recent requests by clients for the lookup tables have prompted us to provide a digital text file of our geological codes which can be freely downloaded as a self extracting zip file from our web site. AGSO Record 1993/46, "The AGSO field geological note books - a user's guide", has also been updated and can be purchased from the sales centre.