Webinar: The AuScope EarthBank Project
Building Nationally Collaborative Geochemical Research Infrastructure to Enable Discovery.
Webinar 1st July 2025. Register link in the comments.
Abstract
Prof Brent McInnes , AuScope EarthBank Project Director, John de Laeter Centre, Curtin University, Australia.
“The AuScope EarthBank project (EarthBank project) is a $21 million national initiative to modernise Australia’s geochemistry data infrastructure and to advance discovery in the Earth and environmental sciences. As Project Director, I lead a program that integrates over $100 million in analytical instrumentation across 10 university laboratories into a single FAIR-aligned digital platform, the AuScope EarthBank platform (EarthBank) (co-developed with Lithodat Pty Ltd) that enables seamless data aggregation, standardisation, and geospatial analysis.
The EarthBank project operates at the nexus of research, government, and industry, facilitating translational outcomes through open-access infrastructure and collaborative networks. Since 2022, over 125,000 georeferenced samples and datasets have been uploaded to EarthBank, with over 1,000 registered users including 15% from industry, demonstrating its value beyond academia. Our CoreTrustSeal-certified system supports research publication pipelines, isotopic mapping, national geochemical baselines, and museum digitisation projects.
A hallmark of EarthBank’s impact is its role in transforming physical collections into discoverable research-ready assets. A flagship collaboration with Museums Victoria registered more than 43,500 historical rock and mineral specimens, now discoverable through EarthBank. This has catalysed similar partnerships with other museums, with an additional 80,000 legacy specimens targeted for integration.
The EarthBank project also plays a global leadership role in geochemical data standardisation through its involvement in the OneGeochemistry initiative, enabling harmonised international workflows. Looking ahead, the EarthBank project will underpin new national isoscape mapping projects in collaboration with Geoscience Australia and state agencies and facilitate tectonic-geochemical integration through joint development with the GPlates community, allowing researchers to evaluate mineral system formation through time and space.
This presentation will explore how the EarthBank team is building new laboratory and interoperable digital infrastructure to support scientific excellence, industry application, and sovereign capability in the global energy transition.”
