SESAR² is happy to announce that its new website has been launched on May 3, 2021. The new website provides updates to content and structure that document SESAR²’s mission to serve all members of the greater sample community and to support, in the best way possible, community-based efforts to establish and promote best practices for registering sample metadata. The new web site features an improved user interface with clearer navigation and concise communication. Updates made to the website highlight the diverse range of backgrounds that our users come from. 

Newly featured content on the website includes:

Resources pages containing new content tailored for Researchers and Institutions with information on best practices for SESAR²’s samples registration, use of the IGSN, and metadata management services and a new space on GitHub for Developers.

Updated Tutorials for how to use MySESAR and register samples.

Information about the benefits and services that SESAR² provides, including its role as an IGSN allocating agent. 

We hope that you enjoy clicking around our new website. If you have any comments or  feedback regarding the website please fill out this form.

Announcing SESAR²’s new website!

On November 24th, we released a new version of SESAR. The release includes new enhancements and improvements.

Enhancements include additional validations to the batch registration process and updated security features (moving select pages from http to https).  Improvements include minor bug fixes to the edit page for managing sample metadata and the processes for transferring ownership of large scale numbers of samples.

You can read the full list of new enhancements and bug fixes on the SESAR Release Notes page.

SESAR 7.4.2 Released

On July 27th, we released a new version of SESAR. The release includes new features, enhancements and improvements.

New features include adding JSON-LD to our sample profile pages and a new REST API. General enhancements and improvements include updates to our map search and minor bug fixes in our image upload tool and web services.

You can read the full list of new features and enhancements on the SESAR Release Notes page.

If you have any questions or comments, please contact info@geosamples.org.

MARS Group Awarded an ESIP FUNding Friday Mini-Grant

SESAR² Curator Sarah Ramdeen and Scripps Institution of Oceanography’s Geological Collections Manager Alex Hangsterfer were awarded an ESIP FUNding Friday mini-grant at this year’s ESIP Summer Meeting.  The funds from the grant will be used to support MARS (Middleware for Assisting with the Registration of Samples), a software developed by Dr. Jim Bowring and his group of undergraduate students at the College of Charleston.

MARS is an open-source web application that streamlines the registration of samples in SESAR² to obtain IGSNs, i.e. globally unique identifiers, for the samples and make them Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (“FAIR”).  The application allows investigators or sample curators to submit sample metadata to SESAR²  using their own sample metadata files, rather than having to transfer sample metadata to the SESAR² batch registration template.  MARS currently supports mapping of NOAA’s Index to Marine and Lacustrine Geological Samples (IMLGS) metadata to the SESAR² schema. Version 1 of MARS will be released in the coming months.

The MARS team is working to expand the functionality of the tool to allow any user to create a map between their preferred sample metadata format and SESAR²’s to broaden the utility of the tool beyond the marine and lacustrine sample community.  The funding from ESIP will be used to support Dr. Bowring’s students as they continue this effort.  At the ESIP Summer Meeting several sample repositories already expressed interest in adopting the tool.

Read more about the history of MARS and SESAR² here, and look for more updates in the coming months!

SESAR Updates, July 2020

Join our Introducing SESAR "2.0" Webinar

We’re thrilled to announce that SESAR “2.0” and our new website are officially live. This release is the biggest update to SESAR since its 2004 founding, with new and improved functionality and UI.

Our new guide provides more information on how to use SESAR and documents our updated vocabularies and metadata schema. 

If you want to get familiar and practice registering samples, please use our sandbox. These samples will not be officially registered and can be used as your personal scratch space.

As part of our revamp, all users are now subscribed to a user listserv. We will be sending periodic emails to our users with system updates and notifications. 

Additionally, we have two webinar sessions to showcase these upgrades:

To sign up for the webinar, please fill out this form. Once you do, we will send a calendar invite. 

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to us at info@geosamples.org.

Thank you,
SESAR Team

Introducing SESAR "2.0" and Webinars Dates

If you run into any issues or have feedback, please reach out to info@geosamples.org. Be sure to join one of our webinar sessions Introducing SESAR "2.0" on October 8th and 9th!

MySESAR is now live!

The Index to Marine and Lacustrine Geological Samples (IMLGS) that has been developed and maintained by NOAA’s NCEI, has been decommissioned and will no longer be accessible on the NCEI web site starting May 5, 2025. In order to ensure continued access and updates to the IMLGS, SESAR and NCEI have agreed that SESAR will take over stewardship of this resource. SESAR staff is working with NCEI and the marine and lacustrine repository community to ensure persistence of this valuable resource. 

SESAR is planning a phased approach to continuing the services of the IMLGS: 

Phase Ia (completed December 1, 2025): Provide access to the current content of the IMLGS. SESAR will create a user interface for searching the current IMLGS and displaying search results. The priority is to make the contents of the IMLGS accessible again as quickly as possible and minimize downtime after the May 5 shutdown of NCEI-based Interactive Map Tool.

Phase Ib (completed February 10, 2026): SESAR has assumed management of the IMLGS Curators Listserv, previously hosted by NCEI. This listserv is an unmoderated forum for discussion and announcements related to the Curators group and Index to Marine and Lacustrine Geological Samples (IMLGS) database. To join the listserv, request to join here (log in to a Google email account first, or email info@geosamples.org to be manually added to the list): https://groups.google.com/a/geosamples.org/g/imlgs

Phase II (in progress, requires additional funding): Fully integrate the IMLGS services with SESAR. SESAR is starting to work with NCEI and contributing sample repositories to understand their needs and desires for a streamlined data ingest process and user needs for search. Based on these needs and desires, we will generate an implementation plan and try to identify sources of funding to perform the necessary technical developments.

Please note that much of the IMLGS data remains accessible also via GeoMapApp here.

We are grateful for the many notes of support we have received from the community reiterating the importance of the IMLGS resource and expressing gratitude to SESAR for helping to steward this resource in the future. We thank the community for your continued support and patience with this transition. 

If you have questions or comments, please reach out to us at info@geosamples.org.

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SESAR 7.4.2 Released

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