EPOS Iceland

The construction of EPOS Ísland is to open access to multidisciplinary Earth Science data and corresponding metadata, including data from the national seismic (SIL) and GPS (ISGPS) networks, as well as derived products like earthquake catalogues of all recorded earthquakes in Iceland. Also, various volcanic data, like ash- and gas measurements, radar measurements from volcanic plumes and collections of photographs and web-camera images for all main eruptions of the last two decades. 

Other infrastructures planned to be connected include the tephra database ASKA, the Icelandic Catalogue of volcanoes, geological maps of Iceland, metadata from petrological and rock samples to name a few, as well as other geophysical raw data, metadata and products connected to geothermal areas, such as at Krafla volcano and data from other European and international collaborative projects, like for example the Krafla Magma Testbed (KMT) project. 

Execution of the project includes two main activities: 

1. Quality review of geoscience data and their conformation to FAIR open access standards.
2. Installation and testing of data services to verify they can meet requirements to withstand expected load from users accessing and downloading data, for the service response time to be within reasonable limits, and they can interact with the EPOS ERIC Integrated Core Service and other Thematic Core Services.

The existence of the multidisciplinary infrastructures of EPOS ERIC and EPOS Ísland, providing FAIR open access to hitherto inaccessible data and research laboratories widely distributed over Europe, creates new opportunities for cross-disciplinary scientific research connecting all the different disciplines within the Earth sciences, including both basic and applied research, student projects, collaborative projects, national and international projects.

Possibilities for connecting with other scientific disciplines will also open up; disciplines like biology, geography, meteorology, and social sciences, which also involves research on various kinds of natural hazards, like earthquake and volcanic hazard for example. 

Construction of the EPOS Ísland research infrastructures will facilitate access by Icelandic scientists to multidisciplinary geoscience data and products from Iceland and other European countries, which will strengthen their competitiveness for international research funding. The increased access will also enable Icelandic universities to utilize the valuable Earth science data, collected during all main seismic and volcanic events of the last decades in Iceland, for the education of new generations of Earth scientists.

Four volcanic eruptions have occurred in Iceland in the last decade, and in general 2-3 eruptions happen each decade and many large earthquakes each century. When a large earthquake or an eruption occurs near habited areas or important community infrastructures and threatens their existence, the response of monitoring institutions, civil protection agencies and government authorities will rely on the analysis and research of previous events. 

EPOS Ísland will make the data from these events accessible to scientists of all national research institutions, as well as to those of other countries, and will therefore contribute to the development of new knowledge, which can be used to mitigate the societal risk and damage resulting from these events.

The EPOS Ísland data services will be valuable to energy companies and consulting companies in their applied research on the utilization of the country’s natural resources, and as possible means to distribute their own data. Furthermore, the Volcano Observations Thematic Core Services are highly important to national and international civil aviation authorities, such as ISAVIA and ICAO, in assessing and managing hazards to aviation in the vicinity of a volcanic eruption.

Last, but not least, the project will enable the participating Icelandic institutions to open access to their valuable databases containing data collected over the last several decades, thus helping them meet national and international regulations for providing open access to data.

The Icelandic Met Office leads Iceland’s participation in the European Plate Observing System (EPOS), which began as an ESFRI project included in the European roadmap for research infrastructures, and Iceland has been a participant in the development of EPOS since the start.

EPOS ERIC will promote geoscientific research in Europe by developing a pan-European research infrastructure for geoscience and improving access to databases and the infrastructure of research and regulatory bodies. 

Participation in EPOS ERIC has already led to research projects and infrastructure development in volcanology in Iceland, but participation also creates new opportunities for interdisciplinary research, including research that is important for civil protection in Iceland, such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

Research infrastructure from the Icelandic Met Office, the University of Iceland and the National Land Survey of Iceland has already been made available within EPOS-ERIC, contributing to additional research on natural hazards in Iceland.

• Icelandic Met Office
• University of Iceland
• National Land Survey of Iceland
• Icelandic Institute of Natural History
• ISOR - Iceland Geosurvey 
• Landsvirkjun - National Power Company of Iceland
• Krafla Magma Testbed (KMT) Project
• ISAVIA
• ICAO
• OR - Reykjavík Energy
• Reykjavík University
• International institutions of geoscience- and volcanic monitoring