Acquisition and analysis of geochemical data are pervasive in the Earth, environmental, and planetary sciences. Geochemical data are fundamental for understanding past, present, and future processes in natural systems, from the interior of the Earth to its surface environments on land, in the oceans, and in the air, to the entire solar system. Accessibility and preservation of geochemical data has been sporadic and fragmented. Thematically focused databases such as EarthChem and GEOROC have facilitated new ways of mining and statistically analyzing large volumes of geochemical data, which led to new discoveries and demonstrated their impact on science, but their maintenance is time-consuming, expensive, and not scalable. As more geochemical database systems are emerging at national, programmatic, and subdomain levels in response to Open Access policies and science demands, the need for global standards and best practices for geochemical data is increasingly urgent so that we can better share and link all data resources in a global network.

This Town Hall aims to provide updates on community activities and progress, initiated in the 2018 AGU Fall Meeting,  and offer the community an opportunity to engage and contribute ideas and feedback. Our goal is to broaden community awareness of and participation in the initiative. We will invite speakers who represent relevant stakeholders such as geochemical societies, geochemical journal editors, data infrastructure providers, researchers, and funders.