Projects & Experiments

Projects

A Project represents an OAE field trial, modeling effort, or research initiative. It captures the high-level context: who is conducting the work, where, and when.

Every metadata file has exactly one Project. All experiments and datasets within the file belong to this project.

Key fields:

Field	Purpose
`project_id`	Unique identifier linking all project data
`mcdr_pathway`	The mCDR pathway (e.g., ocean alkalinity enhancement)
`sea_names`	NERC C16 sea name vocabulary references
`spatial_coverage`	Geographic bounding box
`temporal_coverage`	ISO 8601 time interval
`project_leads`	Principal investigators with ORCID identifiers

→ Full Project schema reference

Experiments

An Experiment is a specific activity within a project. OAE projects typically involve multiple experiments — for example, a baseline monitoring phase followed by an intervention.

Experiment Types

The experiment_types field is multi-select. An experiment can have multiple types (e.g., both "intervention" and "tracer_study" for a combined deployment).

graph TD
    E[Experiment] --> ISE[InSituExperiment]
    E --> M[Model]
    ISE --> I[Intervention]
    ISE --> T[Tracer]
    ISE --> IWT[InterventionWithTracer]

    style E fill:#e8f4f8
    style M fill:#f0e8f8
    style I fill:#e8f8e8
    style T fill:#e8f8e8
    style IWT fill:#e8f8e8

Type	Schema Class	When to Use	Additional Fields
Baseline	InSituExperiment	Pre-intervention monitoring	Standard in-situ fields
Control	InSituExperiment	Reference measurements without intervention	Standard in-situ fields
Intervention	Intervention	Active alkalinity addition	Feedstock, dosing, equilibration details
Tracer Study	Tracer	Dye or gas tracer deployment	Tracer form, concentration, dosing
Intervention + Tracer	InterventionWithTracer	Combined intervention with tracer (same dosing mechanism)	All intervention + tracer fields
Model	Model	Computational simulation	Model components, grid, configuration
Other	InSituExperiment	Experiment type not covered above	Standard in-situ fields

When to use Intervention + Tracer

Only use the combined type when the alkalinity dosing and tracer dosing share the same underlying dosing mechanism or regimen. If they use separate delivery systems or schedules, create two separate experiments — one Intervention and one Tracer Study.

Schema Selection Rules

When multiple experiment types are selected, the form renders the most inclusive schema:

Intervention + Tracer Study → uses the combined InterventionWithTracer schema (all fields from both)
Model is exclusive — cannot combine with other types. Create separate experiments for field work and modeling.

Key Experiment Fields

All experiments share:

Field	Purpose
`experiment_id`	Links datasets to this experiment
`experiment_types`	Multi-select classification
`spatial_coverage`	Geographic bounds of this experiment
`start_datetime` / `end_datetime`	UTC time range
`experiment_leads`	PIs for this experiment

Intervention experiments add feedstock details, dosing information, and equilibration status. Tracer experiments add tracer form, concentration, and delivery details. Both share dosing location and delivery fields.

→ Full Experiment schema reference