From Geophysical Data to Geophysical Informatics

Geophysics is based on massive data work including data observation, data gathering/collecting, data management, and data analysis. Over the years, in China and other countries, geophysicists and geophysical institutions have accumulated a huge amount of geophysical data, built up many geophysical data banks and data centers, constructed/established many monitoring and transferring systems and infrastructures of geophysical data, and developed many advanced data analysis methods about data on land, ocean, and space. Based on this work, a new discipline of geophysics, geophysical informatics, has been gradually developing over the past 20 years. The recent advances of geophysical informatics in China are introduced and reviewed in this paper.