Geoscience Ontology, Geology

A geologic process that adds material to some geologic material or object.

A geologic process that deforms the material of some geologic material or ob-ject. Includes strain and translation. Includes translation of rock bodies, and strain-related processes resulting in changes to the shape of a rock body, including folding, faulting, shearing, or fabric development. Deformation may be either brittle or ductile.

An amount of geologic fluid. Includes all forms of geologic fluids including lava, molten rock, gases, etc.

add SHACL rule that GSSA may not have property Simple_Uncertainty

A generic geologic time interval (e.g. Jurassic) having specific manifestations (e.g. Jurassic 2017). The specific manifestations are its essential parts, while the generic interval is the whole. These time intervals are largely defined by their position between other intervals, without necessarily specifying their bounding time instants. Generic geologic time intervals such as Jurassic are not types (classes) for practical and ontological reasons. Practically, it would imply a cumbersome and complex multi-level ontology: time ranks such as Period would be metatypes (following biological ranks such as Species; Carvalho & Almeida 2016) that instantiate time intervals such as Jurassic, that in turn instantiate Jurassic 2017. It would also be more complex to specify e.g. Jurassic (a type) as the age of a formation (an individual), due to non-instantiation relation between an individual and a type. Ontologically, it would imply Jurassic is not a time span, which is contrary to stratigraphic codes that consider Jurassic (as a geochronologic unit) to be an actual chunk of time: "...units of geologic time... represent [a] span of time ..." (NACSM 2005) and "Geochronologic units are units of time..." (Murphy & Salvador 1998). For these reasons, generic geologic time intervals, such as Jurassic, are considered in GSO to be individuals with essential parts, such as Jurassic 2017. However, it remains somewhat of an open question whether this characterization is indeed best.

When something happens, events are the ‘what’ of the happening, and processes are the ‘how’. E.g. the Trans-Hudson Orogeny (event) caused by a subduction (process). The relation between events and processes is constitution: events are constituted by processes, and processes constitute events. Geologic processes and events have at least one geologic endurant as participant, i.e. a happening cannot occur unless it happens to something. Events can only have events as parts.

An amount of matter primarily (dominantly) having parts created by geologic processes. Can include minor parts that are not of geologic origin, such as organic material, and can be solid, fluid, or a mix.

A material object constituted by some geological material. Is generically dependent on some geologic process or event, for which the object is an output - it cannot exist without being output by the geologic processes or events.

A process that has inputs and or outputs that are part of the Earth System

A pattern in a rock body (foliation, fold), or a feature occurring between rock bodies (contact, fracture). GeoSciML 3.2: A configuration of matter in the Earth based on describable inhomogeneity, pattern, or fracture in a Rock Body. The identity of a GeologicStructure is independent of the material that is the substrate for the structure. Includes sedimentary structures.

A temporal feature that is the boundary between two Geologic time Intervals. Is generically dependent on a date, so can possibly change or could possibly have been a different date - e.g. the end of the Anthropocene is the current moment, which changes with each moment, and the start of the Anthropocene could have been a different time if Erath history was different.

A temporal coordinate value, located either by a point position (with uncertainty) on a time line, specified by a numeric coordinate (generally MYPB, but definitions of 'present' vary). Can be a GSSA if the numeric time coordinate is arbitrarily assigned. Probably should specify a Temporal Reference System used to assign coordinate values.

Any geological temporal feature, including a geologic date, time interval, or time boundary. All geologic time features are dependent one some rock body, strongly or weakly.

A time interval dependent on some rock body and having parts that are (geologic) time intervals. There are 3 primary types of geologic time intervals - these are not comprehensive (i.e. there could be additional types): generic (e.g. Jurassic), specific (e.g. Jurassic 2017), and time scale (ISC 2017).

Hosted by a contact (low-dimension feature), which itself is hosted by an event that caused the contact, by a stratigraphic point, and by a stratigraphic section containing the point.

A time scale is a geologic time inteval in GSO - it is a rock-dependent span of time that is internally divided into other rock-dependent spans of time following a certain topology (after Simon & Cox, 2010). Rock-dependence implies it is intrinsically tied to a specific rock object (e.g. the Earth's rock mass) and internal subdivision implies it is a collection of other geologic time intervals. Moreoever, any change to the parts of the collection results in a different time scale - this implies geologic time intervals cannot be essential parts of a time scale without being static parts (see Brodaric et al, 2019 for types of parts). Time scales are also not part of other time scales, nor part of specific or generic geologic time intervals. This is primarily to maintain internal temporal topology, though this constraint could be relaxed if use-cases warrant. Aligned generally with (Cox and Richard, 2010).

A rock object that is contextual or possibly fragmented into several distinct pieces (i.e. not self-connected). Contextual here means the object cannot moved to another location without losing identity: such moving would imply a different origin process and different surrounding rocks.

"A mineral is an element or chemical compound that is normally crystalline and that has been formed as a result of geological processes." Nickel, Ernest H. (1995), The definition of a mineral, The Canadian Mineralogist. 33 (3): 689-90.

An amount of amorphous material; commonly the product of rapid cooling of melted material. Includes natural glasses in Earth and extraterrestrial material, some biogenic mineral products, and anthromophomorphic manufactured material.

A material endurant constituent by solid geologic material or that is such a material

a physical boundary hosted by a rock body.The exterior-facing material of a rock body. A rock body boundary can have a thickness physical property

A Rock_Material constituent consisting of particles that share a set of characteristics, e.g. genesis, particle size (distribution), mineralogy, shape. For example. the quartz sand that is a constituent in a sandstone, or the feldspar phenocrysts that are a constituent in a granite.

An amount of rock material: consisting of an aggregation of grains composed of mineral, glass, or other rock material. General concept for any rock, sediment, or other solid constituent of the Earth. This is the 'top' of the lithology hierarchy comprised of standard rock names, and should be used to indicate 'any rock or unconsolidated lithic material'.

A geologic object constitited only by some solid geologic material.

An amount of geological material primarily constituted by solids.

A time interval defined by specifying geologic time boundaries. E.g. Jurassic 2017 (but not Jurassic). Geologic in the sense that the interval is either referenced to some particular rock body, or its boundaries (started_by, finished_by) are referenced to (hosted by) stratigraphic points, which are dependent on some rock body (e.g. a stratigraphic section).

These are rock objects that retain identity if moved (i.e. non-contextual) and depend on a single (self-connected) unified material e.g. Boulder, Crystal, Fossil (rock material).

A geologic process that removes material from some geologic material or object.

A geologic process that changes the material of some geologic material or object. Includes metamorphism, metasomatism, alteration, weathering.