BoreholeML vs. GeoScienceML - Why should we use BoreholeML? / Other exchange formats

Why BoreholeML – while GeoScienceML supports a simple description of boreholes already?

We see that borehole data play an important role for users and consultants in hydrogeology, engineering geology, mineral resources and also for geoscientific purposes which need a more detailed description:

• In Germany for example, more than 3 million borehole records exist in detailed formats at the State Geolocal Surveys (SGD).
• The majority of data requested from the SGD concern borehole data. An essential part of the services provided by the State Geological Surveys presents the provision of borehole information for planning agencies, the public and the economic sector.

Thus, modelling borehole data should be a (more) prominent role in modelling geologic data.

We are convinced that a model for borehole data should comply with the practical requirements of easy selection from huge data resources and should offer all kinds of boreholes available. Since the predominant part of borehole databases consists of borehole data dealing with hydrogeology, engineering geology, and mineral resources, the attributes covering these topics should be considered preferably. An orientation to other categories - e.g. boreholes for hydrocarbon exploration - are of lower practical significance. And moreover, access to these data is mostly restricted.

BoreholeML is based on a philosophy that allows artificial features (the borehole) to be modelled beyond natural features (the geological unit) and therefore it includes also data concerning the drilling technique, sampling, logging, casing, and installation.
For practical reasons, the 2-level concept of viewing borehole data, designed in the EC project “eEarth” was adopted:

• The top level is represented by the class Borehole, giving information on master data including the identification and technical and/or legal availability of detailed data. With this low-level metadata it is self-contained.
• The second level holds the detailed data itself. This is an optional data level.

From our point of view, BoreholeML meets the requirements of the majority of borehole data in an appropriate way.

Other exchange formats

This chapter lists some data specifications created in the past for borehole data exchange between companies. However, these formats are either specific for a special purpose, e.g. the data transfer between hydrocarbon producing companies, or they don’t use the contemporary Extensible Markup Language (XML). Nevertheless these data specifications are unsuitable to put the data exchange between diverse data producing institutions and a consumer into practise.

• WITS-ML
• LAS
• ATS