QUEST: Content-based Access to Geophysical Databases

A major challenge facing geophysical science today is the unavailability of high-level analysis tools with which to study the massive amount of data produced by sensors or long simulations of climate models. As part of a NASA HPCC Grand Challenge effort [Mun92], we have developed a prototype environment called QUEST to provide content-based query access to massive datasets used in geophysical applications. QUEST employs work stations as well as massively parallel processors to produce spatio-temporal features that are used as high-level indexes into terabyte datasets. This paper discusses our continued development of the QUEST environment. 1 Introduction A critical challenge facing geophysical science today is the unavailability of high-level analysis tools with which to study the massive amount of information captured by sensors onboard orbiting satellites or produced by climate models. To address this challenge, we must develop a new generation of systems for scientific data managem..