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Box 2 Glass Earth Ltd/Geoinformatics Data Intervention Project
In 2003, Glass Earth Ltd (GEL) sought all of the geo-science data GNS held for the GEL permit area in the Coromandel and Taupo volcanic regions, to develop a comprehensive 3D geological and structural model for epithermal gold and geothermal exploration. This data intervention project comprised a programme of data identification, collection, validation and modelling, through a number of partnerships with data custodians and 20 primary data sources, including GNS. This assisted the targeting of the subsequent airborne geophysical surveys to improve the 3D model developed by Geoinformatics.
The negotiation with GNS over 12 months was difficult and long for a number of reasons. Access to the GNS databases had to be negotiated with a large number of individual scientists determine actual ownership (which for some datasets rested with current or former clients), and the format and level of detail of the data to be released. Some GNS scientists were concerned that the GEL project would pre-empt regional synthesis research planned for the future. Others were concerned that the data would be used incorrectly or inappropriately beyond its compiled scale, thus reflecting badly on the custodian and GNS. A few perceived that GEL would make money from “their” data, so wanted to maximise the price for what were predominantly publicly funded research results. There was also debate about the data collation and integration techniques GEL were going to use, and the potential value of aggregated geo-scientific data.
Finally a licence fee was agreed at a cost of $20,000, on the basis that the data and the derived database would be given back to GNS on completion for their own use, but not for sale(4).
GEL spent $1m to convert the GNS and other data sets into a geo-referenced 3D digital database, and to analyse and interpret the knowledge from the original FRST-funded and DSIR legacy data. This new work equated to the equivalent of 10 person-years work (26 staff employed over 5 months), including geoscientific teams in Australia, New Zealand and India. The subsequent airborne surveys and the follow-up development and interpretation of their fully integrated 3D database and visualisation system took the total GEL spend to $5m.
10.11 This example was a successful partnership between a CRI and a private sector company. FRST-funded data were provided at a modest cost and further investment by the private sector unlocked their commercial value. However, it is also an example of where private sector funding, in the absence of FRST funding for database development, lead to the derived products being locked up in industry IP and not accessible beyond CRI research use. Such derived products have value for a wide range of other users. It also demonstrates the sort of costs involved in developing the value of data, and the time and thus cost of negotiating agreements on individual data sets where their maintenance and development is not fully funded.
(4) The data licence covered 11 databases, including 2 nationally significant databases (“Regional Geological Map Archive and Database”, and “National Petrological Reference Collection and PET Database”), with the understanding that GEL would further investigate another 10 GNS data sets. These additional data sets were separated because they would require considerable work by GNS staff to supply and/or their supply required permission from third parties. GEL was charged conversion fees for data search and extraction required for some of the additional 10 data sets, mostly in the case of hard copy files and maps.
This shows that way back in 2003, GEL were setting the stage for the results that we should be seeing soon.