Mercury is a distributed metadata management, data discovery and access system. It is a scientific data search system to capture and manage biogeochemical and ecological data in support of the Earth science programs funded by the

United States Department of Energy The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government that oversees U.S. national energy policy and energy production, the research and development of nuclear power, the military's nuclear w ...

(DOE) and

United States Geological Survey The United States Geological Survey (USGS), founded as the Geological Survey, is an agency of the U.S. Department of the Interior whose work spans the disciplines of biology, geography, geology, and hydrology. The agency was founded on Mar ...

(USGS) - Department of Interior (DOI). Mercury was originally developed for

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

, but the consortium is now supported by USGS and the DOE. Ongoing development of Mercury is done through an informal consortium at

Oak Ridge National Laboratory Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is a federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1943, the laboratory is sponsored by the United Sta ...

. Mercury is a part of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory Environmental Sciences Division (ESD) and a contributor to the Climate Change Science Institute (CCSI).

Technical features

Mercury supports data archiving, data discovery through various search strategies (text string, fielded, spatial, temporal), data reuse, and longer-term scientific digital data stewardship, and supports a range of recognized

data exchange Data exchange is the process of taking data structured under a ''source'' schema and transforming it into a ''target'' schema, so that the target data is an accurate representation of the source data. Data exchange allows data to be shared between ...

and interoperability protocols and supports various metadata standards including

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing data. It defines a set of rules for encoding electronic document, documents in a format that is both human-readable and Machine-r ...

, Z39.50, FGDC, Dublin Core, Darwin Core, Ecological Metadata Language, and

ISO The International Organization for Standardization (ISO ; ; ) is an independent, non-governmental, international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries. Me ...

. Mercury also uses OAI-PMH to index metadata records from Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) and redistribute them other data providers.

References

External links

USGS Science Data Catalog - powered by MercuryUSGS Mercury Metadata Editor
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mercury Metadata Clearinghouse Metadata Data management software United States Geological Survey United States Department of Energy Oak Ridge National Laboratory