About SESAR

What are the benefits of the IGSN?

The IGSN will have a wide-ranging impact on sample and data management, especially with respect to sample sharing and data integration. With the ability to track a sample through its history, the system will facilitate our ability to build on previously collected data on samples as new techniques are developed, thus solving a long standing major problem in the geosciences in which samples lose their "identity" as their names get changed when aliquots are passed from one investigator to another.

Why do we need the IGSN?

Sample-based data reported in the scientific literature or in digital data systems are always associated with a sample name. Currently, these names are ambiguous.

• Different people often collect samples and give them identical names (e.g. IC-1 for the first sample collected on an expedition to Iceland).
• Different people analyzing the same sample often rename it according to local naming conventions.

Ambiguity in sample names has generated significant confusion, has made it difficult to follow the analytical history of a sample, and to link disparate data generated at different times by different investigators.

The geoscience community is now taking advantage of the rapid progress in information technology to build a digital data and knowledge system that will allow the sharing and integration of data across disciplines and borders. For this reason, it becomes essential, in order to be able to link disparate data hosted in many different systems, to create a centralized registry that provides globally unique sample identifiers.

How will the IGSN be used?

The IGSN is a serial number to be used when sample-based data is reported in publications and listed in digital data systems so that data can be referenced unambiguously to the correct sample. The IGSN can be used in combination with a sample name given by the investigator or archiving institution, or as the exclusive sample designation.

Sample names have the advantage to be meaningful to an investigator: a sample named HAW-8 can easily be recognized as part of a sample collection from Hawaii, but this name will be ambiguous. For example, GEOROC, an on-line database for rock geochemistry, lists 5 samples with the same name 'ML19' that were collected at such different locations as Malaita (Solomon Islands), Mauna Loa, Mauna Kea, Mount Jefferson, and Medicine Lake in the Cascades. The use of the IGSN is necessary to ensure globally unique identification. Its relation to a sample's name can be compared to the relation of a person's social security number to the person's given name.

We recommend that authors who cite the IGSN follow the syntax IGSN:ABC012345, i.e., an IGSN: followed by the 9 digit identifier.

How do I get an IGSN?

Investigators or curators, as well as institutions, archives, and museums will be able to register their samples either individually or in batches by providing a minimum set of metadata about each sample. These metadata include sample location (latitude, longitude, elevation), date of collection, collector, sample type (e.g. sediment, igneous rock, mineral, fossil), and given sample name. If these data are not available, which is the case for many old samples, sample name and owner will suffice.