Tethys is a freely available open source temporal-spatial database for metadata related to acoustic recordings.  The database is intended to house the metadata from passive acoustic monitoring detection and localization studies, allowing the user to perform meta analyses or to aggregate data from many experimental efforts based on a common attribute. This resulting database can then be queried based on time, space, or any desired attribute and the results can be integrated with external datasets such as NASA’s Ocean Color, lunar illumination, etc. in a consistent manner.  While Tethys is designed primarily for acoustic metadata from marine mammals, our team has worked with terrestrial passive acoustic monitoring studies as well and the schemata are designed to be general enough to support terrestrial work as well.

Tethys provides a scientific workbench to the practitioner.  Thrrough our web client and data explorer clients, we provide point and click interfaces to explore your data.  For more detailed analysis, Tethys provides programming interfaces that practitioners use to conduct their analysis.  Currently, Tethys supports Matlab, Java, Python, and the R programming language.  These interfaces allow practitioners to access the metadata associated with a specific laboratory or project.  Additionally, the tools provide access to environmental data based on spatial location and selected temporal boundaries from a wide variety of online sources.  For a broader introduction, watch some of the short talks on the tutorials page.

Currently, the server software runs on 64-bit Windows only; porting to other platforms that support Microsoft’s open database connectivity protocol should be possible.  Client software runs on platform-independent languages and should be executable on most platforms.

Development of the Tethys Metadata project is sponsored by:

US National Oceanographic Partnership ProgramUnited States Bureau of Ocean Energy ManagementUS Office of Naval ResearchUS Navy Living Marine Resources Program

The following organizations have participated in the development of Tethys

:Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San DiegoUS National Oceanic and Atmospheric AdministrationSan Diego State University