DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF GEOLOGICAL

THESAURUS IN KOREA

Jaehong Hwang and Kwanghoon Chi

KIGAM(Korea Instituted Geoscience And Mineral resources)

30 Gajeong-dong, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 305-350, South Korea

Keywords: Thesaurus, Geologic term, spatiotemporal object.

Abstract: We divide into fifteen geological areas covered in this research contained ore deposit, geochemistry,

petrology, and so forth. We analyze each geological area and we standardize the fields of Korean, English,

abbreviation, and meaning about geological term. To construct the thesaurus for each thesaurus, we make

out: First, we limited the real world to the geologic world in Korea literatures. Second, we extract the 15

areas, about 3000 terms and 236 spatiotemporal objects of each geologic literature in Korea. Third, we

considered the standardization of geological term in Korean and English and make out each terms. Finally,

we classify the geologic terms and make a guideline each area

1 INTRODUCTION

Recently with the development of semantic Web

technologies in information search, the necessity for

thesaurus is increasing along with lexicons. A

thesaurus is the combination of classification and a

lexicon, and is a map of knowledge structure

expressing relations among concepts (terms) subject

to human knowledge activities such as learning and

research using formally organized and controlled

index terms for clarifying the context of

superordinate and subordinate concepts. However,

although thesauri are regarded as essential tools for

controlling and standardizing terms and searching

and processing information efficiently, we do not

have a Korean thesaurus for geology. To build a

thesaurus, we need standardized and well-defined

guidelines. The standardized guidelines enable

efficient information management and help

information users use correct information easily and

conveniently.

The present study purposed to build a thesaurus

system with basic terms used in geology. For this,

first, we surveyed related works for standardizing

geological terms in Korea and other countries.

Second, we defined geological topics in 14 areas and

prepared a classification system (proposal) for each

topic. Third, based on the geological thesaurus

classification system, we created the specification of

geological thesaurus. Lastly, we designed and

implemented an Internet-based geological thesaurus

system using the specification.

We divide into fifteen geological areas covered

in this research contained ore deposit, geochemistry,

petrology, and so forth. We analyze each geological

area and We standardize the fields of Korean,

English, abbreviation, and meaning about geological

term. To construct the thesaurus for each thesaurus,

we make out: first, we limited the real world to the

geologic world in Korea literatures. Second, we

extract the 15 areas, about 3000 terms and 236

spatiotemporal objects of each geologic literature in

Korea. Third, we considered the standardization of

geological term in Korean and English and make out

each terms. Finally, we classify the geologic terms

and make a guideline the specification of

spatiotemporal ontology model for geological maps

in Korea.

2 THE CLASSIFICATION

SPECIFICATION OF

GEOLOGIC TERMS (DRAFT)

In order to build a geological thesaurus DB, we first

developed the classification specification of

geological terms (draft). In order to systematize the

classification of geological terms, we made the

standardized classification of geological terms

253

Hwang J. and Chi K. (2008).

DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF GEOLOGICAL THESAURUS IN KOREA.

In Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies, pages 253-259

DOI: 10.5220/0001530802530259

 SciTePress

referring to geological terminology standards in

Australia, digital geological map terminology

standards in the U.S., and Korean geological

dictionaries, and mapped Korean terms to the

corresponding English and Chinese terms for

Internet search. Besides, for geological terms, the

concepts and scopes of terms were defined by

specifying several data items. A total of 14

geological areas were defined including digital

geological informatics, ore deposits, geochemistry,

paleontology, geotechnology, geological process,

field mine terminology, geophysics, structural

geology, environmental geology, mineralogy,

lithology, historical geology, mathematical geology,

and geological GIS terminology. Particularly for the

area of digital geological map, this study analyzed

existing geological maps and then: first, extracted

objects by geological period necessary for digital

geological maps; second, extracted rock objects

distributed over digital geological maps; third, the

arranged rock unit adapted for Korean geological

maps into 6-stage classification items from the

broadest classification (sedimentary rocks, igneous

rocks and metamorphic rocks) to the most detailed

one referring to Australian thesaurus, lithological

classification (draft) in BGS(British Geological

Survey) and geological map unit classification in

USGS(United States Geological Survey); and fourth,

the assigned identification codes of geological age

and rock objects to the classification items. Through

this procedure, we made rock-time unit ontology

specification of digital geological maps. The digital

geological map classification system first divided

digital geological maps into spatial units and time

units. Spatial objects were extracted in rock units

composing geological maps for spatial units and in

geological time scale units for time units.

2.1 Extraction of Rock-Time Unit

Objects of Digital Geological Maps

The classification of minimum rock units of digital

geological maps aims at digitalization into

lithologically uniform minimum map units. The

minimum unit classification of digital geological

maps (proposal) targeted Korean geological maps,

and we selected a common 1:50,000 digital

geological maps as a material for analyzing rock

units. When the digital geological map was analyzed,

1961 rock facies objects were identified, and each

object was composed of rock, layer, stratum,

stratigraphy, age, geological structure, ore, the

chemical and physical properties of the rock,

geographical name, etc. These rock objects were

classified into rock units, and they were organized to

have atomicity from one another and to be in the

relation of spatial inclusion between superordinate

terms and subordinate stems. In this study,

‘minimum rock unit’ was used instead of ‘lithology’

for two reasons. One is that sediment, which is not a

rock but an unconsolidated layer, cannot be

classified lithologically in a strict sense, so we need

to classify rock units in a new way. The other is that

‘minimum unit’ means that objects on the same level

has indivisible atomicity.

2.2 Time Unit Classification of Digital

Geological Maps

Time unit classification of digital geological maps

used eon for broad classification, era for

intermediate classification, and period for narrow

classification. In the broad classification, time was

divided into the Precambrian Eon and the Cambrian

Eon, and the Cambrian Eon was again subdivided

into the Paleozoic Era, the Mesozoic Era and the

Cenozoic Era. Geological age identifiers used 4

upper-case alphabets for eons and eras and two

alphabets for periods. However, because the

Cambrian Period and the Carboniferous Period

overlapped with each other, they were given

identifiers CA and CB, respectively.

2.3 Rock Units Classification of Digital

Geological Maps

Rock units classification of digital geological maps

first made the broadest classification into

sedimentary rocks and unconsolidated sediments,

metamorphic rocks and igneous rocks, and then

broad, intermediate, narrow, detailed and most

detailed classification, so a total of 6 depths of

classification tree. Figure 1 shows a topic map of

major basic objects extracted from Korean digital

geological maps. Topic map is a methodology for

modeling a set of topics, organizing topics, relations

among topics, and resource information on topics

into ontology. A topic map is a technology standard

for defining knowledge structure in distributed

environment and mapping the defined structure to

knowledge resources. It is a new paradigm for

structuring, extracting and navigating information

resources. Terminology objects according to topic

marked as a box show Korean term, English term,

geological abbreviation and RGB color, and have a

classification identifier in subordinate classification

(Figure 1).

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3 GEOLOGICAL THESAURUS

DB CONSTRUCTION AND

SYSTEM DESIGN

Thesaurus is a control lexicon that classifies

terminology systematically in order to distinguish

equivalent relations, hierarchical relations and

interconnected relations and to improve search

performance. The main purpose of a thesaurus is the

management of synonyms. Many synonyms or

similar forms of words are linked to one another

through the concept of a preferred term. This

prevents failure in information search caused by the

ambiguity of language. Major items used in building

a thesaurus are preferred terms, variant terms,

superordinate terms, subordinate terms, related

terms, USE, Used For, and domains of definition. In

this research, these terms were included in building

the geological thesaurus DB for 15 geological areas.

In particular, the area of digital geological maps was

divided into rock units and time units, and major

items such as Korean standard terms, English

standard terms, abbreviations, term descriptions and

colors were prepared, synonyms and variant terms

were interconnected with one another, the entire

classification system was defined as a specification,

and additionally the colors and definitions of rocks

and geological ages according to the classification

system and rock photographs were built up. The

geological information thesaurus DB was

implemented as a MSSQL DB for Web service. In

addition, for end users’ convenience, an Internet-

based geological information thesaurus system was

constructed through drafting the webpage of the

thesaurus system and designing the functions, the

database and the system structure .Figure 2 is the

system design showing the process of search service

on the Web using the thesaurus DB built with OTM.

3.1 Function Design

The system functions were designed separately for

graphic fonts, external image links, ontological

expression in DB, database term search, tree view,

etc. First, the system was designed to support colors

and fonts so that images for geological terms can be

inserted and colors can be applied to terms in the

Figure 1: The ontology map of rock-time unit for digital geological map(Main diagram).

DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF GEOLOGICAL THESAURUS IN KOREA

255

tree. Second, using links to external images,

geological terms were linked to external images.

Third, thesaurus expression functions were designed

to process graphic displays in various ways by a

building sophisticated database containing relations

such as superordinate and subordinate relations and

relations among related terms. Fourth, the search

function was designed to find geological terms

referring to Korean terms, English terms and

Chinese terms in the database.

3.2 DB and System Design

The geological term thesaurus built by Thesaurus

Manager (OTM; Object Thesaurus Manager) is

stored in DB and a manager and separate Java API

are supported for interlocking between Web search

service programs and the geological term DB so that

users can make visual queries conveniently on the

Web. Web search application programs

implemented using the API supports navigation

among terms through interlocking between the tree

structure and the graphic screen, so it can support

thesaurus-based intelligent search in connection to

other search engines available. The geological term

system first enters terminology data using OTM

after the verification of the terminology system by

specialists in geological resources, and then uploads

the DB on the Web through the interlocking

thesaurus API. Graphic user interface (GUI) is

implemented through programming of Java and Java

Server Page (JSP), and internet services are provided

to end users.

Figure 2: The thesaurus system Design of geological terms.

pplication Server

Web User

Inferred engine

…

Gra

hic web interface

Interface connected brainy natural lanaguage

PI connected

thesaurus

JDBC

Search engine

Window 2003 Server

ODBC

Geologic term thesaurus Manager

DBMS

Geologic term

thesaurus

User

uer

Web User

Domain ex

ert

Domain ex

ert

Domain ex

ert

…

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Figure 3: Retrieving terms with Korean, English and Chinese fields.

4 WEB SERVICE OF

GEOLOGICAL INFORMATION

THESAURUS

While existing information search services have

provided information limited to users’ knowledge,

the present geological term thesaurus provides broad

information in graphics including the location and

interrelation of information, upgrading information

to the level of knowledge. Figure 3 is retrieving

terms with Korean, English and Chinese fields each

map sheet. Fourth, database was built by inserting

the contents of the developed spatiotemporal

ontology model into the redefined digital geological

map table. Fifth, the patterns and colors of rocks

were refined using the symbology unit of the

spatiotemporal ontology model, and applied to the

geological map schema. While existing information

search services have provided information limited to

users’ knowledge, the present geological term

thesaurus provides broad information in graphics

including the location and interrelation of

information, upgrading information to the level of

knowledge. Figure 3 is retrieving terms with Korean,

English and Chinese fields Figure 4 make it possible

to web query using geologic thesaurus trees and

image service for Geologic terms

5 CONCLUSIONS

The results of this study are as follows. First,

geological term standardization defined around 3500

terms commonly used in geology in English,

Chinese and Korean, and cataloged their concepts,

photographs, abbreviations, etc. Second, in the

classification of geological terms, geology was

divided largely into 14 areas, and for each area

intermediate, narrow and detailed classification were

made, a classification system of superordinate and

subordinate terms was established, and the

specification of geological term standard (proposal)

was drafted. Third, for the area of digital geological

maps, we extracted rock objects and geological age

objects existing in Korean geological maps and

expressed the unique color of each object using

RGB values. Lastly, while existing information

DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF GEOLOGICAL THESAURUS IN KOREA

257

Figure 4: Image service for Geologic terms.

search services have provided information limited to

users’ knowledge, the present geological term

thesaurus provides broad information in graphics

including the location and interrelation of

information, upgrading information to the level of

knowledge. However, the geological term tree will

be designed through long-term deliberation of

opinions from many specialists in geology so that it

becomes most reasonable and highly accessible

through the Internet.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This research was supported by a grant(NEMA-07-

NH-Article) from the Natural Hazard Mitigation

Research Group, National Emergency Management

Agency.

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