World Heat Flow Database Project officially launches fair and open global heat flow data portal
The World Heat Flow Database Project has been officially launched, providing a one-stop resource for global heat flow research, data, and publications.
The World Heat Flow Database Project (heatflow.world) has officially launched a community-driven portal and one-stop resource for heat flow-related data, publications, research projects, and expert networks.
The project has been developed by the GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences with the support of the International Heat Flow Commission (IHFC) and the International Lithosphere Program (ILP), with funding from the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG).
The project aimed to develop the new research data infrastructure for the IHFC Global Heat Flow Database, thus providing one-stop resource for comprehensive information on heat-flow-related data, publications, projects, and researchers.
The new technical database is designed to adhere to FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) and OPEN data principles, ensuring broad accessibility and seamless integration and interoperability with other geoscientific data services (e.g. EPOS). Some of the core elements are the provision of globally used persistent identifiers:
- DOI for heat-flow data newly submitted to the database
- ORCID IDs to uniquely identify authors, and
- International Generic Sample Numbers (IGSN) for connecting data and literature with physical samples on which data were measured.
Phase One of the project was officially launched on July 2025. Presentations made during the launch event can be accessed via this link.
Source: World Heat Flow Database Project