The Geo-Seas seismic data viewer: a tool to facilitate control of data access

Data transparency could be used as a metaphor to describe how data owners can give controlled access to their data to end users. In a scientific environment and focusing on seismic data, this is a very delicate activity that needs to consider the desire for data owners to position themselves in the research community, possible legal issues and the commercial incomes that data could provide. In this perspective, this work focuses on the possibility of having various levels of access to data so that its opacity can be progressively removed according to the contractual status with the end user. Within the EU FP7 Geo-Seas project, an interactive web-based seismic data viewer tool has been developed in order to provide these features. End users work within secured shells contained in the viewer without downloading any data. This relieves the concerns of data providers of losing control of their data, fosters their collaborative attitude and ultimately increases the availability of data within the community.