Speaking Geology Together: Tools for Pan-European Harmonised Vocabulary Creation

The creation of a harmonised pan European geological map requires the agreement on a common lithological vocabulary. In practice, these are specific lithological concepts, ideally defined according to established and widely recognised classification schemes, represented by standardised labels.

Launched in 2022, the Geological Service for Europe (GSEU) project aims, among other objectives, to develop detailed, multilingual vocabularies for describing lithology, anthropogenic deposits, and lithotectonic units. These vocabularies are curated by international teams of GSEU members from across Europe. The challenge in creating a vocabulary suitable for harmonised mapping lies in reconciling differing classification schemes, addressing obsolete or regionally specific terms, accommodating multiple hierarchical structures, and incorporating genetically related terms, qualifiers, and compound names.

These challenges can be addressed through software applications that support visualising the hierarchical structure of the vocabulary and facilitate collaborative discussion. We present Vivity, a lightweight visualisation tool designed to plot hierarchies. It accepts Excel files as input, generates a tree diagram, and allows the user to export the plot as a PNG or SVG file. Additionally, factsheets are developed to represent each concept on an individual page. Ideally, each factsheet will be accompanied by an illustration that visually supports the concept’s definition and will be made available as a printable document. To achieve this, a Python script processes Excel files by converting them into JSON format, which is then used to generate LaTeX files and, ultimately, finalised PDF documents. Furthermore, the vocabularies are being tested against real-world use cases to ensure the concepts are practically applicable.