CNES projects library

October 4, 2018

Form@ter

The ForM@Ter (Forme et Mouvement de la Terre) hub’s mission is to federate existing data centres serving the solid Earth science community. It offers access to data, exploits available space-based and in-situ measurements and is helping to spawn new products and services.

ForM@Ter is the solid Earth component of France’s Earth System research infrastructure, alongside the THEIA (land surfaces), AERIS (atmosphere) and ODATIS (oceans) data centres. It thus supports research into natural and man-made environments at spatial and temporal scales ranging from the infinitely small (the scale of the atom for fine geochemical processes) to the infinitely large (Earth), and from the instantaneous (seismic ruptures) to several million years (large-amplitude deformations). Research is based on exploration, observation, experimentation and modelling in domains as diverse as geodesy, geomagnetism, gravimetry, the seafloor and coasts, seismology and relative sea level.

Working with infrastructures already in place or in construction, ForM@Ter has four main aims:

  • To provide unified access to readily useable solid Earth data derived from satellite and in-situ measurements, through a data and services portal.
  • To offer expertise to the scientific community and the public in the use of solid Earth data.
  • To spin off technological innovations from research laboratories to the scientific community, as well as to the public and to commercial markets.
  • To support existing data access services maintained by the national, European and international community.

Within this framework, ForM@Ter provides a portal to more than 20 French and international laboratories, for example to maps derived from data acquired by the GRACE satellites or public data at ISGI (International Service for Geomagnetic Indices). It is not designed to replace existing data centres or services, but rather to act as a gateway to pool and facilitate access to such data.

The ForM@Ter solid Earth hub is built mainly around a Coordination and Distribution Centre, data centres and services, and scientific expertise centres. Its mission is also to partner with existing and increasingly large-scale European infrastructures and programmes like Copernicus. Two of the three major projects in which ForM@Ter is currently involved are directly related to Europe: the contribution to the EPOS project (European Plate Observing System) and the MUSCATE* multi-satellite, multi-sensor, multi-date product that is drawing on data from the Sentinel satellites.
* Multi-Satellite, Multi-Capteurs pour des données Multi-Temporelles

CNES is uniquely positioned not only to supply data from the satellites it operates, but also to coordinate with the hub to create new products from French and European missions.

Le CNES, via sa position unique est non seulement un fournisseur de données grâce aux différents satellites qu’il opère, mais  il coordonne, en liaison avec le pôle, la création de nouveaux produits issues de missions françaises et européennes.

See the ForM@Ter website.

Contact

Mioara Mandea mioara.mandea at cnes.fr - TEL: +33 (0)1 44 76 79 48