Our publishing services are meant to provide easy access to planetary mapping dataset, so that cartographic products can finally become really reusable and serve the scientific community at their best.

GMAP inherits the best practices developed by the PLANMAP project for producing high quality, accessible and reusable datasets. Maps previously produced are available on a dedicated web page.

We take care of storing your data on dedicated web platforms, making your maps easier to find, re-use and cite. A dedicated GMAP data portal, currently under construction, will serve all the products in downloadable form, not only as pdf but also together with the original GIS dataset.

Your dataset will be also automatically inserted in the VESPA database, and subsequently stored in the ESA PSA DOI-granting guest storage facility, making your map easy to access, reusable and findable by the next generation of planetary mappers.

Any cartographic product of planetary mapping can be published with europlanet-gmap, without interfering with other kind of publications (e.g. your data can be still be published in journals). GMAP offers a way of storing and serving your dataset to the community, offering a dedicated standardization process that can greatly increase the quality of your mapping dataset.

In addition, maps produced within the GMAP framework can find their way of official publication on the Journal of Geological Field Trips & Maps which is the only journal exclusively dedicated to geological maps in Europe and can offer the opportunity to publish special volumes dedicated to planetary geological maps in addition to normal publications/submissions.

Maps submitted for publications undergo a quality-check process that is performed on two different levels:

• A scientific check, which can be performed during the creation of the map or after, makes it possible to receive suggestions and preliminary feedback from experienced planetary scientists. This kind of process might be especially important if you are a student composing his/her first map.
• A technical standardization takes care of checking the quality of the GIS data and helps in creating good-quality datasets that can then be easily served on online web-mapping services. This step will grant that your map will be easily reusable by the community.

The map is then composed into a single, well documented package that respects a minimum standard of quality, and then it is published on the various channels of the europlanet-GMAP community.

Technical quality of the data is of primary importance for the europlanet-GMAP project, although it is often disregarded, but it is central in making your map discoverable and re-usable. For this reason we provide tools, documentation and templates that can be freely used for producing maps suitable for being published within the europlanet-GMAP infrastructure.

Banner image credit: Jacopo Schiavo / Planmap / GMAP