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.
- USGS employees should refer to Criteria for Selecting Non-USGS Repositories for Release of USGS Scientific Data for information on determining the acceptability repositories.
- USGS employees who would like to submit a request for a repository to be added to the chart below, must provide an email to FSPAC with documentation of how the requested repository meets the USGS criteria.
- USGS employees should refer to Criteria for Selecting Non-USGS Repositories for Release of USGS Scientific Data for information on determining the acceptability repositories.
- 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).
- Bureau scientific data products are placed in a USGS-owned repository whenever possible.
- 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.
- 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.
- Identifiers: A Digital Object Identifier (DOI) must be part of the metadata record for each product (refer to SM 502.7).
- DOIs for data released in USGS owned data repositories are obtained from USGS Digital Object Identifier Tool for Data Release and registered with DataCite.
- DOIs for data released in non-USGS data repositories are created by those repositories.
- 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).