SVALBARD ROCK VAULT: Taking care of data and developing critical infrastructure for geoscientific research and education projects

The Svalbard Rockvault project is an initiative to archive and protect unique geological material acquired on Svalbard primarily through drilling activity, but also by geological sampling and geophysical acquisition campaigns. In the majority of the world, national institutions take care of geological material in public archives even if commercial entities that have undertaken the initial data acquisition cease to exist. In Norway, the Geological Survey of Norway runs and maintains a national core storage centre at Løkken (https://www.ngu.no/emne/nasjonalt-borkjerne-og-pr%C3%B8vesenter) while the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate maintains an extensive core storage facility from offshore wells as well as the world-unique DISKOS database of with well and seismic data, amongst others. On Svalbard, however, no such data storage is currently present and data are managed at the discretion of the companies or institutes involved in the data collection. Due to the Svalbard Treaty, international companies have equal rights to explore for natural resources on Svalbard as their Norwegian counterparts. In the past, this has resulted in a large spread of geological material away from Svalbard to, among others, Cambridge, Sweden and Oslo. With the Svalbard Rockvault initiative, we aim to bring the relevant institutions together to discuss the problems and possible solutions of this 'data exodus', well aligned with SSF?s strategy of open data policy and UNIS and SNSK long-term commitments to preserving data for present and future research projects.