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Acceptable Digital Repositories for USGS Scientific Publications and Data

Updated October 2024

In accordance with U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Fundamental Science Practices (FSP) requirements, scientific data approved for release must be placed in an acceptable digital repository to allow free public access and long-term preservation. This page contains a chart of acceptable repositories for USGS data information products. Questions related to this acceptable digital repositories guidance should be directed to the USGS FSP Advisory Council (FSPAC) at gs_fspac@usgs.gov

Key considerations in using acceptable USGS repositories are as follows:

  • Repository:
    • Bureau scientific data products are placed in a USGS-owned repository whenever possible. 
      • Converse to an acceptable digital repository, which is a system the Bureau has approved as a location and release point for USGS science data, some USGS repositories have been identified as Trusted Digital Repositories (TDRs). A USGS TDR is a repository that “provides reliable, long-term access to managed digital resources to its customers, now and in the future.”
    • In certain circumstances, non-USGS repositories can be selected from the chart as data release locations to satisfy requirements, such as scientific community preferred data locations for particular data types or journal designated locations.
    • Listing of and links to non-USGS repository sites on this web page do not constitute endorsement or warranty by the USGS (refer to USGS Liability for additional information).
  • Metadata: In all cases, a complete metadata record for these data products is required (refer to Survey Manual (SM) policy chapter SM 502.7).
    • A copy of the metadata record must be placed in the USGS Science Data Catalog. When possible, the complete metadata record must also accompany the data.
      • USGS repositories have established relationships with the Science Data Catalog and publish metadata directly to the Catalog upon their publication of a data release.
      • Authors publishing data releases to any non-USGS repository are directly responsible for submitting the XML metadata file(s) describing the data to the Science Data Catalog. This submission must be done using the USGS Individual Metadata Uploader Tool
  • Identifiers: A Digital Object Identifier (DOI) must be part of the metadata record for each product (refer to SM 502.7).
  • Use of Databases: In addition to the repositories listed below, data may be placed in and served from existing public facing USGS owned and approved databases that meet USGS Public Access Plan requirements. Such databases are those that reside on USGS servers and meet the quality requirements stated in SM 502.8.

Similar to the USGS, repositories of other Federal agencies must meet Federal Government wide public access requirements and therefore are considered acceptable repositories. Repositories owned and funded by non-USGS entities are subject to the quality and access requirements established by those entities. The USGS is not responsible for the curation of the data served from non-USGS repositories.

 

Acceptable Digital Repositories for USGS Scientific Publications and Data

Repository Name Owner* Funding Source*
USGS ScienceBase (USGS Trusted Digital Repository)  USGS USGS
USGS Alaska Science Center Data Repository (USGS Trusted Digital Repository) USGS USGS
USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center (USGS Trusted Digital Repository) USGS USGS
National Geologic Map Database (NGMDB) (USGS Trusted Digital Repository) USGS USGS
USGS Coastal and Marine Geoscience Data System (USGS Trusted Digital Repository) USGS USGS
USGS National Water Information System (NWIS) USGS USGS
Water Mission Area (WMA) National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) Node USGS USGS
LANDFIRE U.S. Department of the Interior - Office of Wildland Fire and FS/USDA U.S. Department of the Interior - Office of Wildland Fire and FS/USDA
Global Biodiversity Information Facility, United States (GBIF-US) Integrated Publishing Toolkit (IPT) USGS USGS, NSF
USGS Planetary Analysis Ready Data USGS NASA
Biogeochemical Dynamics NASA NASA
NASA Planetary Data System (PDS NASA NASA
Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC) NASA, USGS NASA, USGS
Geologic Database of Information on Volcanoes in Alaska (GeoDIVA) USGS, State of Alaska (Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys) USGS
National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) NCBI NIH
Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS) A consortium (iris.edu) NSF
National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) NOAA NOAA
Landscape Approach Data Portal BLM BLM
Ameriflux DOE DOE
EPA Environmental Dataset Gateway EPA EPA
Environmental System Science Data Infrastructure for a Virtual Ecosystem (ESS-DIVE)  DOE DOE
Systems Biology Knowledgebase (KBase) DOE DOE
Center for Engineering Strong Motion Data (CESMD) USGS, California Geological Survey (CGS) USGS, CGS
Northern California Earthquake Data Center UC Berkeley USGS
Southern California Earthquake Center Data Center Caltech USGS
Knowledge Network for Biocomplexity (KNB) NCEAS, UC Santa Barbara NSF
California Environmental Data Exchange Network (CEDEN) SWRCB SWAMP
SNAP at the IARC UA Fairbanks NSF, NOAA
US Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network Information System (NIS) Data Portal NCEAS, UC Santa Barbara NSF
OpenTopography SDSC, UC San Diego NSF
DesignSafe-CI NHERI NSF
Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. (CUAHSI) HydroShare CUAHSI NSF
Biological and Chemical Oceanography Data Management Office (BCO-DMO) BCO-DMO NSF Ocean Science (OCE) and Antarctic Sciences (ANT)
EarthChem NSF Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
Research Data Archive FS/USDA  FS/USDA 
Forest Ecosystem Monitoring Cooperative (FEMC) Data Archive University of Vermont FS/USDA 
Environmental Data Initiative University of Wisconsin (UW) NSF, UW, University of New Mexico
Magnetics Information Consortium (MagIC)   MagIC  NSF, Oregon State University, University of California San Diego 
Open Science Framework Center for Open Science NSF, NIH, and others
Neotoma Paleoecology Database A consortium (neotomadb.org) NSF
UNAVCO Gage Database  A consortium USGS, NSF, NASA
Washington Environmental Information Management System (EIM) State of Washington Department of Ecology State of Washington
Movebank Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, Ohio State University and University of Konstanz NSF, NASA, German Aerospace Center
State of New York (NY) Data.gov  NY NY
ScholarsArchive@OSU Oregon State University Oregon State University
Agri-environmental Research Data Repository University of Guelph University of Guelph
Dryad Dryad Dryad Member Organizations
Figshare Macmillan Publishers Digital Science
EnviData  Swiss Federal Institute Research WSL  Swiss Federal Institute Research WSL 
Zenodo CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN)  European Union and others  
Pangaea BMBF-DFG-IODP EUC/RI-BMBF-DFG-IODP

*Note: Some organizations identified as the repository owner or funding source are referred to in the chart by acronyms (shown in parenthesis) as follows: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Science Foundation (NSF), Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Department of Energy (DOE), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Forest Service/U.S. Department of Agriculture (FS/USDA), California Geological Survey (CGS), University of California (UC) Berkeley, California Institute of Technology (Caltech), National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) UC Santa Barbara, State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB), State of California Surface Water Ambient Monitoring Program (SWAMP), San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) UC San Diego, Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure (NHERI), European Commission/Research and Innovation (EUC/RI), Federal Ministry of Education and Research Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF), German Research Foundation Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP).

 

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