Zhejiang University Expert Professor Leads The Development Of DDE Platform
The Deep-time Digital Earth (DDE) Platform (Deep-time.org 1.0 Alpha), led by Prof. DU Zhenhong at the Zhejiang University School of Earth Sciences, was officially launched on November 8, 2022. Prof. Jennifer McKinley, president of the DDE’s Governing Council, announced this exciting news in the presence of nearly 50 participants attending the meetings of the Governing Council (GC) and the Scientific Committee (SC) of the DDE at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris.
The Deep-time Digital Earth (DDE) is the first IUGS-recognized big science programme, officially launched at the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) event held in Beijing, China in 2019. Its mission is to harmonize global earth evolution data and share global geoscience knowledge, with the long-term vision of transforming the earth sciences by encouraging a data-driven research paradigm. It embodies the “FAIR” data concept—Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable, thereby enabling world-wide linking on desktop systems for geoscientists, students, and teachers. The DDE Platform led by Prof. DU Zhenhong aims to provide subscribers with easy access to its resources and tools via DDE Cloud.
To provide globally accessible research infrastructure services, the DDE has gathered relevant experts since its launch. Between 2020 and 2021, the DDE held in-depth discussions on the construction of DDE Cloud. Afterwards, many strong forces in cutting-edge geoscience and informatics, including universities, institutions, commercial cloud platforms and government agencies around the world, committed approximately 1 year to developing the DDE Platform. The research team led by Prof. DU Zhenhong successfully created the world’s first public research platform, thus playing an indispensable role in supporting the formation and improvement of DDE infrastructure services.
“The DDE Platform is one of the highlights in our cross-disciplinary research in the fields of geoscience and informatics,” said Prof. Du. “It is also a signature achievement that the School of Earth Sciences has made in big data and Earth’s deep system, thus making contributions to the IUGS Big Science Program.”