-
Notifications
You must be signed in to change notification settings - Fork 7
New issue
Have a question about this project? Sign up for a free GitHub account to open an issue and contact its maintainers and the community.
By clicking “Sign up for GitHub”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy statement. We’ll occasionally send you account related emails.
Already on GitHub? Sign in to your account
MIDS Element - 14. Mass #4
Comments
Whilst this information is critical for the earth sciences, it is potentially more appropriate for either MIDS-2 or MIDS-3, with the use of a specimen identifier at MIDS-0 and MIDS-1? I've therefore modified the labels for this element. |
I know this may sound a little hypercritical, but the phrase should always be minerals or phases (if you get supertechnical). Gemstone names are recognizable by the public but are purely aesthetic. |
Can anyone help me with the mapping for this term? |
In Darwin Core the two options are dynamicProperties and a MeasurementOrFact record. |
Thanks John! |
I think specific gravity is what is ment, not total mass. Mindat stores
physical properties (such as specific gravity, hardness, lustre) and
chemical formula for minerals. Rocks are classified with a taxonomy that is
validated by presence of certain minerals (with their CNMMN/CNMNC approved
chemical formula). iSamples also does not use mass. I am not sure how
important specific gravity is. I think the mineral and rock
classifications are more important. the mineral names are approved by
International Mineralogical Association, see: http://cnmnc.units.it/
unfortunately the list is a pdf, not the best format for sharing data.
so I think the MIDS group should reconsider the use of mass for MIDS2 and
perhaps replace it by mineral name and CNMMN/CNMNC approved formula for
minerals. I do not know where the rock classification that mindat is
using orginates from, I think it may be the same as
https://www.bgs.ac.uk/technologies/bgs-rock-classification-scheme/
Interestingly minerals and rocks have types and the types also have a type
locality (which biological specimens do not have).
Kind regards,
Wouter
…On Mon, 6 Mar 2023 at 11:31, Sam Leeflang ***@***.***> wrote:
Thanks John!
That is a very quick response
—
Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub
<#4 (comment)>, or
unsubscribe
<https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AADAUXRIKZYYNMFKXYOATDTW2W4GZANCNFSM4UQXFNXA>
.
You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.Message
ID: ***@***.***>
--
Coördinator Research-data and E-infrastructure
International Biodiversity Infrastructures
Natural Biodiversity Center, P.O. Box 9517, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands
Coordination team member, Distributed System of Scientific Collections (
DiSSCo <http://dissco.eu/>)
Node Manager for DiSSCo, Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF
<http://www.gbif.org/>)
Chair Biodiversity Data Integration IG, Research Data Alliance (RDA
<http://www.rd-alliance.org/>)
*ORCID*: 0000-0002-3090-1761 | *Linkedin*: *linkedin.com/in/wouteraddink/
<http://linkedin.com/in/wouteraddink/>*
*Twitter*: @wouter99999 | *Tel*: +31 (0) 71 751 9364
***@***.*** - www.naturalis.nl - www.catalogueoflife.org -
www.dissco.eu
|
is generally correct. An full explanation would take 30 minutes. I'll try to keep it brief. In terms of specific gravity, its an identifying characteristic of a mineral along with habit, cleavage, hardness, luster, streak, etc. Rock types. Rock classification schemes are generally all based on chemistry. Without chemical analysis, its even hard to discern the validity of a specific type assignment. There are different classification systems for different rock types. BGS is the only comprehensive rock classification system for all rock types published on the web. MinDat doesn't enforce a classification system or hierarchy like a linnaean class > family > genus and species. Most collections use the same general naming system but not a strict hierarchy. I suggest not requiring a physical property (with the exception of maybe color) at level 1 or 2. I do recommend either 1 mineral name or 1 rock type at level 1 or 2. |
Back to the question whether mass should included as a level 1 property of a specimen-- for specimens that do not change mass over time (e.g. by drying out, reacting with the atmosphere, decaying, etc.) the mass of the specimen can be a useful characterization to help identify the specimen. Rock and mineral specimens are a good example, but there are other kinds of specimens for which mass would be a useful property to record. |
As far as rock and mineral classification, there are lots of different answers depending on what the purpose of including the 'material type' is in the specimen description. I'd suggest that a soft type approach, something like what dataCite does with subject keywords is a solution. A subject term (in this case the label for a material type) has attributes-- schemeName, scheme URI, a URI for the term, and a classification code. The you can assign the specimen to material type using different classification schemes and be clear. |
for some lithology vocabularies see |
It's great to get the discussion on this. One point that we probably need to make super clear in the MIDS specification is that the inclusion of data in MIDS 1 is not about the importance of the data, but about the data capture processes in the mass digitisation programmes. Am I right in thinking that this term should be replaced by Specific Gravity? I'm not seeing either term in GeoCASE. Thanks, Elspeth |
It should be mass. You often see the term weight used instead, but I think that's flawed. |
It's unitWeight in efg. I understand the logic of using weight, especially from an interoperability perspective. However, I think mass is the proper measurement. Weight is a function of gravity. Mass doesn't change. It is neither destroyed nor created. Plus, there is far less consistency in the units of measurement used for weight compared to measurements of mass. |
Thanks, Ben, we will include this in the MIDS calculation. Although I haven't seen this information in any of the datasets I have looked at so far. I think that is also why GeoCASE isn't showing it as it is not generally available information. It also worries me that this is a free text field in EFG extension. If this should be generally available information I think we should see if we can at least split the value and the unit, as is done in the dwc MeasurementOrFact. |
Are there any collection datasets available that actually include mass, so we can have some examples? |
@wouteraddink Our meteorite and geology databases have both. It's just a number. Values are always in grams. @samleeflang |
Mass is rarely recorded for palaeontological specimens and is not a required characteristic. I checked with curators at the Natural History Museum (London), National Museums Scotland and Natural History Museum (Denmark) about mineral and rock collections. Mass is rarely recorded for rock specimens and some mineral collections. The overall feeling is that it is not something that would be critical at MIDS2 level (although I am still following up with someone on this). However, mass is important for gem and meteorite specimens and for these specific collections it should be MIDS level 2 as it is used to distinguish between specimens. Note, it is mass, not specific gravity which is important (the latter is a property of the mineral species, not the specimen). The mineral extension for DarwinCore is being worked on and it is likely that mass will be incorporated into this, especially as it is hard to incorporate the relevant terms into the ABCDEFG schema. The Geology extension for Specify collection management system is also a couple of years from completion. Together these mean that in practice, whilst mass is an important characteristic for gems and meteorites, most collection portals will not display these details for a while yet. |
The decision (13 Jul 2023) based on all the discussion to date is to move this to MIDS Level 3. Mapping is a question - DWC MeasurementOrFact? |
Classifications of meteorites use mass to distinguish one specimen from another; in addition to registration name, year found and country (where found).
Nomenclatural code for meteorites.
For examples, Meteoritical Bulletin Database.
A Mass information element should be added at MIDS level 1, and possibly also at MIDS level 0.
Information element needs to be conditionally present i.e., if material is meteorite the mass data must be present.
A similar principle also applies for crystal minerals (gem stones).
Commission on new minerals, nomenclature and classification.
Source: CETAF Digitization Working Group, 7th December 2020.
The text was updated successfully, but these errors were encountered: