Data Formats

Data Formats

This page describes the standard data formats accessible to the CoreTools library.

Project

A project file is a simple XML descriptor that contains metadata and a set of references to data files associated with the project. An example project file looks like:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://corewall.org/1.0/project" xmlns:geo="http://www.w3.org/2003/01/geo/wgs84_pos#" id="and1-1b">
    <name>ANDRILL McMurdo Ice Shelf (MIS) Project</name>
    <description> The key aim of the MIS Project is to determine past ice shelf responses to climate
        forcing, including variability at a range of timescales. To achieve this aim ANDRILL will
        recover core from beneath the McMurdo Ice Shelf. The primary target for the MIS site is a
        1200 meter-thick body of Plio-Pleistocene (0-5 million years ago) glacimarine, terrigenous,
        volcanic, and biogenic sediment that has accumulated in the Windless Bight region of a
        flexural moat basin surrounding Ross Island. A single ~1000 meter-deep drillcore will be
        recovered from approximately 900m of water.</description>
    <program>andrill</program>
    <expedition>1</expedition>
    <site>1</site>
    <hole>b</hole>
    <manifest>
        <entry name="Images" type="Image" format="tsv" path="images.tsv" relative="true"/>
        <entry name="Lithologies" type="Lithology" format="tsv" path="lithologies.tsv" relative="true"/>
        <entry name="Density" type="XYDataset" format="tsv" path="density.tsv" relative="true"/>
    </manifest>
    <geo:lat>-77.8894</geo:lat>
    <geo:long>167.0893</geo:long>
</project>

The namespace for this schema is http://corewall.org/1.0/project and the XSD for validation is available here.

Constructing a Project File

At bare minimum, the project file requires:

• a project element with a non-empty id attribute
• a name element with a non-empty value
• a manifest element with 0 or more entry element children
• each entry element must specify non-empty values for all attributes: name, type, format, path, and relative

It is recommended but not strictly required that the project file also contain:

• a description element to provide a concise description of the project. This will be used when publishing to a hosting service like CoreRef
• a program element used to group projects from the same program
• an expedition element used to group projects from the same expedition
• a site element used to group projects from the same site
• a hole element used to uniquely identify a particular hole at a site
• a lat element from the Geo schema (http://www.w3.org/2003/01/geo/wgs84_pos#) to encode the project's latitude
• a long element from the Geo schema (http://www.w3.org/2003/01/geo/wgs84_pos#) to encode the project's longitude

Each of the elements described above are optional and may be omitted. The only restriction when using the program, expedition, site, and hole group is that any of them may be omitted but if they are specified, they must be specified in order. For example, if both a site and a hole is specified, the hole element must appear after the site element.

Additionally, the schema has been designed to allow other elements from other namespaces, e.g. geo:lat and geo:long, to appear in the project file. The only restriction is that these elements must appear after the manifest element.