Importance of 3d model management to enable FAIR principles for geological models

A high number of 3d geological models are produced every year at mining companies, geological surveys, consulting offices and many other institutions. Many of these models are being created by different authors and usually have a slightly different purpose and need to meet different demands. Yet the underlying geology stays the same. While the data providers can publish a variety of 2d data sets 3d are lacking behind. This leads to a loss of knowledge, e.g. when domain experts have been creating a particular 3d model and refined it over the years but also to the loss of investments. The whole creation process must be executed by a second modeler. With a database for 3d models the existing and new models can organized in such way that they are centrally accessible. In a first step within the organization. In further steps models might be shared with a broader audience. A flexible data model should be easily applicable and allow to apply any metadata model to the data to make it even easier to find the desired data. In order to not only act a data silo a management system should provide an API such that the data is interoperable and allows to implement any needed data format or moreover to reuse the data directly in different programs or scripts. With GST its users are being enable to layout a foundation for a FAIR geological management solution and apply several layers to make 3d models easily accessible.