At the fall meeting: Toward broad community collaboration in geoinformatics

A Town Hall meeting at the upcoming AGU Fall Meeting will be held under the theme “Envisioning the future of Earth science data and knowledge access through a broad national geoinformatics collaboration.” Geoinformatics (GI) is understood as a distributed, integrated digital information system and working environment that provides innovative means for the study of the Sun-Earth system and other planets through the use of advanced information technologies. It is an emerging science and technology frontier, and it is increasingly recognized as a relevant part of the broader cyberinfrastructure for the sciences (see U.S. National Science Foundation Blue Ribbon Panel Report at http://www.nsf.gov/od/oci/reports/toc.jsp), both within the academic and applied Earth and planetary science and computer science communities as well as in federal and state agencies.