Abstract
3D structural geomodels are central to the representation, interpretation, and communication of geological knowledge, serving both research and industry across a wide range of applications—from resource exploration to risk assessment. Despite their widespread use, the reuse, interoperability, and long-term accessibility of geomodels remain critically limited. This is largely due to their encoding in proprietary formats and the absence of explicit, standardized representations of the underlying expert knowledge that informs their construction.
While geomodel files may include data inputs, modeling algorithms, and some interpreted features, they typically fail to document crucial tacit knowledge—such as the interpretive rationale, domain assumptions, modeling choices, and decision-making processes—that geoscientists use to construct and validate these models. Although some of this information is relegated to metadata (e.g., degrees of validation), it remains disconnected from the interpretive processes and lacks semantic richness.
To address these challenges, we introduce POKIMON, an ontology designed to formally represent the diverse and layered knowledge embedded in geological geomodels. POKIMON leverages Semantic Web technologies to make this knowledge explicit, interoperable, and machine-readable. It models geomodels both as conceptual constructs and material artefacts, capturing how they are built spatially, and epistemologically. Knowledge elements—including geologic interpretations, modeling workflows, and decision rationales—are structured as graph- based data, enabling integration with heterogeneous geoscientific sources such as maps, reports, and observational databases.
POKIMON is aligned with a top-level ontology (BFO) and is designed for re-using existing geoscience domain ontologies. POKIMON can be directly used by geomdoellers during the construction of the geomodels by integrating it into their systems, or in later steps to annotate and preserve the semantics of already constructed models. By doing this, POKIMON lays a foundational cornerstone for an open, standards-based infrastructure for exhaustive geomdoelling knowledge integration.
About the First author: With a 2024 PhD from the University of Orléans, Dr. Imadeddine LAOUICI specializes in knowledge engineering for geoscientific applications. His doctoral research focused on developing innovative formalisms to structure geological knowledge used in geomodelling systems and automating key interpretations processes via formal analysis and semantic technologies. Currently, as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the French Geological Survey, Imadeddine is at the forefront of extracting semantics from existing geological models and transforming this knowledge into valuable graph-based structures for future applications.
- Imadeddine LAOUICI - BRGM, Orléans F-45060, France
- Boyan BRODARIC - Geological Survey of Canada, Natural Resources Canada, Ottawa, ON K1A 0E8, Canada
- Fatma CHAMEKH - BRGM, Orléans F-45060, France
- Christelle LOISELET - Ecole Spéciale des Travaux Publics du Bâtiment et de L’industrie (ESTP), 94234 Cachan, France
- Gautier LAURENT - ISTO, UMR 7327, Université d’Orléans, CNRS, BRGM, Orléans F-45071, France