{"schema_version":1,"experiment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp11_mechanism_context_external20_20260804","research_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp11_external_scrutiny_20260804","cell_id":"layer_decay_and_expiration_management__earth_sciences","opaque_id":"layer_decay_and_expiration_management__earth_sciences__A","search_lanes":{"direct_problem":{"queries":["geological drill core repository storage capacity backlog curation deaccession retention","drill core library retention policy disposal deaccession geological samples","geological sample collections storage crisis repository drill core capacity report","earth science collections at risk storage space curation survey geological specimens"],"source_ids":["S1","S6","S7"],"no_result_note":null},"closest_prior_art":{"queries":["drill core library retention policy disposal deaccession geological samples","geological sample repository collection management policy retention disposal offsite storage","core repository guidelines inventory duplicates legal hold disposal geological samples","geological collections lifecycle model accession retention transfer deaccession audit offsite storage"],"source_ids":["S2","S3","S4","S5","S6","S7"],"no_result_note":null},"historical_terminology":{"queries":["drill core culling storage repository geological samples","drill core thinning disposal core library historical policy","geological collections weeding deaccession samples repository","drill core retention disposal manual 1970 1980"],"source_ids":["S4","S5","S6"],"no_result_note":null},"products_practices_standards":{"queries":["geologic sample repository standard collections management inventory retrieval deaccession","geological collections lifecycle model accession retention transfer deaccession audit offsite storage","core library storage capacity expansion drill core collection official"],"source_ids":["S2","S3","S5","S7"],"no_result_note":null},"non_english_regional":{"queries":["conservación descarte testigos sondeos litoteca política almacenamiento geológico","gestión muestras geológicas litoteca eliminación testigos perforación capacidad","carothèque politique conservation élimination carottes forage géologiques stockage","Bohrkernlager Aussonderung Entsorgung Bohrkerne Richtlinie geologisch Sammlung"],"source_ids":["S8"],"no_result_note":null},"composition_subproblems":{"queries":["geological sample repository orphan collection recurring review metadata disposition authority transfer destruction","drill core repository duplicates metadata capacity annual review disposal approval database record","geological collections lifecycle model accession retention transfer deaccession audit offsite storage","geologic sample repository standard collections management inventory retrieval deaccession"],"source_ids":["S2","S3","S4","S5","S6"],"no_result_note":null}},"sources":[{"source_id":"S1","title":"Geoscience Data Preservation—GSA Position Statement","url":"https://rock.geosociety.org/net/documents/gsa/positions/pos9_dataPres.pdf","publisher":"Geological Society of America","date_or_year":"Adopted 2005; revised October 2022","source_type":"TRADE_PROFESSIONAL","language":"English","claims_supported":["Geoscience collections include drill cores and cuttings that may be rare, unique, costly, or impossible to replace.","Collections are at risk from limited space and funding, inadequate housing, incomplete inventories, poor documentation, and ineffective retrieval.","Reanalysis with new techniques and contexts routinely produces new knowledge, so nonuse is an unsafe proxy for future value."]},{"source_id":"S2","title":"The U.S. Geological Survey Geologic Collections Management System (GCMS)—A Master Catalog and Collections Management Plan for U.S. Geological Survey Geologic Samples and Sample Collections","url":"https://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/1410/","publisher":"U.S. Geological Survey","date_or_year":"2015","source_type":"OFFICIAL_GUIDANCE","language":"English","claims_supported":["USGS developed a centralized inventory and common criteria for evaluating geological collections.","The plan specifies metadata and protocols for access, storage, retention, transfer, and disposal.","The plan was explicitly presented as common repository practice based on existing NSF and Smithsonian practices."]},{"source_id":"S3","title":"Guide to Planning for and Managing Scientific Working Collections in the U.S. Geological Survey","url":"https://www.usgs.gov/scientific-collections/guide-planning-and-managing-scientific-working-collections-us-geological","publisher":"U.S. Geological Survey","date_or_year":"2019; updated February 2025","source_type":"OFFICIAL_GUIDANCE","language":"English","claims_supported":["USGS operates a documented physical-collection lifecycle covering planning, acquisition, use, repeated evaluation, and disposition.","Evaluations are triggered by events including discovery of orphan collections and must occur at least every five years.","Disposition options include retention, transfer, museum accession, or destruction, with ownership checks, formal documentation, metadata, persistent identifiers, and assigned responsible authorities."]},{"source_id":"S4","title":"Archival Policies and Collections Database for the Woods Hole Science Center's Marine Sediment Samples—Deaccession & Disposal","url":"https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2006/1187/htmldocs/dispose.htm","publisher":"U.S. Geological Survey","date_or_year":"2006","source_type":"OFFICIAL_GUIDANCE","language":"English","claims_supported":["The repository required annual archive review and used a seven-year age threshold only to identify candidates for further review.","Eligibility also considered lost information, deterioration, storage limitations, and duplication.","A curator-led committee and chief scientist approved disposition; public notice, a one-month waiting period, alternate storage or transfer, hazard review, and permanent disposition records were required."]},{"source_id":"S5","title":"Drillcore Acceptance, Disposal and Access—Policy and Procedures","url":"https://www.resourcesregulator.nsw.gov.au/sites/default/files/2023-12/nsw-drillcore-policy-procedure.pdf","publisher":"Geological Survey of New South Wales / NSW Department of Industry","date_or_year":"2015; document reflects August 2016","source_type":"OFFICIAL_GUIDANCE","language":"English","claims_supported":["NSW uses recorded significance scores to support acceptance and later disposal decisions.","Core may be thinned or disposed because of duplication, deterioration, hazards, insufficient significance, or the need to make space for more significant core.","Annual review, geoscientist approval, preservation of equivalent representative core, title-holder notice, digital records, and database metadata updates are required."]},{"source_id":"S6","title":"Drill Core and Materials Storage Facility Policy","url":"https://www2.gnb.ca/content/dam/gnb/Departments/en/pdf/Minerals-Minerales/Drill_Core_MFS_Policy-e.pdf","publisher":"New Brunswick Department of Natural Resources","date_or_year":"Effective September 1, 2004","source_type":"OFFICIAL_GUIDANCE","language":"English","claims_supported":["Existing provincial facilities were essentially full, and added storage was expected eventually to fill, creating an explicit value-versus-capacity problem.","The policy limits future storage while preserving representative material and sets rules for abbreviation or disposal.","A regional geologist reviews candidates; staff retain representative, well-documented core, may photograph material, notify rights holders, maintain a disposal list, and manage hazardous core responsibly."]},{"source_id":"S7","title":"National Geological Repository","url":"https://www.bgs.ac.uk/geological-data/national-geological-repository/","publisher":"British Geological Survey","date_or_year":"Current page, updated June 2026","source_type":"FIRST_PARTY_PRODUCT","language":"English","claims_supported":["The repository manages more than 600 km of drill core plus millions of samples under statutory and scientific obligations.","It provides searchable catalogues, digitisation, controlled subsampling, and linked return of data and residues.","BGS describes ongoing collection rationalisation as a routine process needed to preserve capacity for new scientifically and commercially important material."]},{"source_id":"S8","title":"Servicio de la Litoteca","url":"https://www.igme.es/servicio/litoteca/","publisher":"Instituto Geológico y Minero de España–CSIC","date_or_year":"Current service page; 2025 service conditions","source_type":"FIRST_PARTY_PRODUCT","language":"Spanish","claims_supported":["Spain's national geological sample library catalogs, stores, manages, images, and provides controlled access to subsurface cores and samples.","Sampling must preserve at least half of a core, and only nondestructive methods are allowed when insufficient material remains.","Repository staff authorize sampling; data, residual preparations, and unused materials must be returned, demonstrating evidentiary-preservation and dependency controls."]}],"problem_evidence":{"status":"SUPPORTED","finding":"The capacity–evidence tension is externally documented. New Brunswick reported facilities essentially full and expected new space eventually to fill; BGS performs ongoing rationalisation to preserve accession capacity; and GSA reports limited space, inadequate curation, incomplete inventories, and retrieval failures across geoscience collections. The same evidence confirms the disposal hazard: cores can be unique or irreplaceable and can gain value from new techniques or questions.","source_ids":["S1","S6","S7"],"uncertainty":"The sources establish that the problem exists, but do not quantify a universal accession-to-curation rate or show that every repository accumulates faster than it curates."},"adopter_evidence":{"status":"SUPPORTED","finding":"Concrete adopters and authorizers are identifiable: repository curators and collection stewards, USGS Science Center directors and other named collection authorities, NSW department geoscientists and core-library managers, New Brunswick regional geologists and drill-core managers, and comparable national-repository officials.","source_ids":["S3","S5","S6","S7"],"uncertainty":"Exact approval chains vary with ownership, permits, mineral rights, donor agreements, and jurisdiction."},"implementation_evidence":{"status":"PARTLY_SUPPORTED","finding":"Implementation feasibility is strongly supported by detailed and operational policies covering inventory, metadata, recurring review, scoring, duplication checks, representative retention, transfer, controlled disposal, approval, notice or waiting periods, hazard review, and audit records. However, the retained sources do not report a controlled comparison showing improved retrieval time or usable capacity at acceptable labor and false-expiry rates.","source_ids":["S2","S3","S4","S5","S6","S7","S8"],"uncertainty":"Policies demonstrate deployability and routine use, not the proposed pilot's comparative causal effect."},"prior_art":{"disposition":"ESTABLISHED_PRACTICE","closest_analogues":[{"name":"USGS Woods Hole annual review and deaccession workflow","source_ids":["S4"],"same_problem":true,"same_causal_lever":true,"overlap":"Annual review, an age-based candidate trigger, metadata/condition/duplication criteria, curator and scientific approval, public notice, a waiting period, alternate storage or transfer, safety review, and permanent disposition records closely reproduce the proposed gated lifecycle.","remaining_difference":"The proposal adds a frozen one-aisle, no-destruction shadow comparison with explicit retrieval, capacity, labor, dependency, hold, and false-expiry measurements."},{"name":"USGS Working Scientific Collections Lifecycle Model and GCMS","source_ids":["S2","S3"],"same_problem":true,"same_causal_lever":true,"overlap":"Central inventory, required metadata, lifecycle stages, recurring evaluation, orphan detection, ownership verification, retention/transfer/destruction alternatives, formal authority, documentation, and persistent provenance links cover most proposed components.","remaining_difference":"The sources do not prescribe the proposal's exact 90-day shadow-pilot design, hot/warm/cold labels, or its combined outcome thresholds."},{"name":"NSW drillcore acceptance and disposal system","source_ids":["S5"],"same_problem":true,"same_causal_lever":true,"overlap":"Recorded value scores, annual disposal review, duplicate thinning, space prioritisation, preservation of representative higher-ranked core, approval, notification, digitisation, and database disposition records implement the same evidence-aware lifecycle lever.","remaining_difference":"It does not report reconstruction-task testing or a reversible controlled comparison against ordinary case-by-case management."},{"name":"New Brunswick drill-core capacity and retention policy","source_ids":["S6"],"same_problem":true,"same_causal_lever":true,"overlap":"The policy explicitly responds to full storage, prioritises representative evidence, requires scientific review and rights-holder notice, records disposal candidates, and controls hazardous disposition.","remaining_difference":"Its published procedure lacks the proposed explicit dependency rubric, quarantine experiment, and measured retrieval/capacity outcomes."},{"name":"BGS ongoing collection rationalisation","source_ids":["S7"],"same_problem":true,"same_causal_lever":true,"overlap":"A major national repository routinely rationalises holdings to retain capacity for new high-value material while maintaining catalogued access and statutory collections.","remaining_difference":"The public page does not expose the detailed scoring, exception, rollback, or evaluation protocol."}],"contrastive_claim_remaining":"A credible claim remains only as a local implementation-effect claim, not as a new lifecycle method: for one frozen aisle, adding explicit dependency and hold verification plus a no-destruction shadow classification may reduce catalog gaps and projected active-storage demand without material retrieval delay, false-expiry classifications, or disproportionate staff effort relative to the local baseline.","contrastive_claim_falsifier":"Falsify the incremental claim if the shadow pilot yields no improvement in classification coverage, retrieval, or projected usable capacity; produces material false-expiry findings after dependency and authority checks; delays representative retrieval tasks; or consumes disproportionate staff time.","confidence":"HIGH","search_limitations":"This was a bounded eight-source web review, not an exhaustive survey of every repository. It included English-language official practice across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia plus Spanish terminology and practice, but did not examine patents, procurement records, unpublished internal procedures, or all other languages and regions."},"researchability_gates":{"externally_supported_problem":{"status":"PASS","rationale":"Official and professional sources document filled or constrained storage, continuing accession pressure, incomplete inventories, retrieval barriers, and the irreplaceability and future analytical value of geological samples.","source_ids":["S1","S6","S7"]},"identifiable_adopter_or_authorizer":{"status":"PASS","rationale":"Repository curators, collection stewards, science-center directors, department geoscientists, regional geologists, and core-library managers are named operational or approval roles in the retained guidance.","source_ids":["S3","S5","S6"]},"distinct_testable_incremental_claim":{"status":"PASS","rationale":"Although the intervention package is established practice, a narrower comparative claim remains testable: whether the explicit frozen-aisle, no-destruction shadow implementation with dependency/hold checks improves specified local metrics. None of the retained sources reports that exact evaluation.","source_ids":["S3","S4","S5","S6"]},"bounded_next_evidence_step":{"status":"PASS","rationale":"A 90-day shadow review of a roster-frozen aisle is bounded by place, time, units, outcomes, and stop rules; it can compare retrieval time, classification coverage, projected capacity, false-expiry findings, and labor without destroying material.","source_ids":["S3","S4","S5"]},"no_unresolved_safety_or_authority_stop":{"status":"PASS","rationale":"The no-destruction pilot is reversible, and existing practice supplies ownership checks, scientific approval roles, rights-holder notice, hazard review, and documentation. Material with unresolved identity, ownership, holds, or hazards can remain untouched.","source_ids":["S3","S4","S5","S6","S8"]},"adequate_search_evidence":{"status":"PASS","rationale":"All six required lanes were searched adversarially. Exactly eight opened direct sources are retained, spanning six independent publishers; seven are official or first-party sources. The results include current and historical terminology, operational policies, a non-English national repository, and component-combination searches.","source_ids":["S1","S2","S3","S4","S5","S6","S7","S8"]}},"strict_success":false,"screen_survival":false,"remaining_research_value":"MODERATE","recommended_next_step":"Run the authorized 90-day no-destruction aisle shadow pilot solely as a local implementation evaluation. Pre-register baseline retrieval tasks, classification and metadata coverage, projected active-space change, staff hours, false-expiry adjudication, authority mismatches, and halt thresholds; do not represent the lifecycle package itself as novel.","world_novelty_boundary":"The bounded search finds the proposed problem–intervention package to be established repository practice and leaves only a local comparative implementation claim. It cannot establish world novelty, patentability, freedom to operate, market size, prevalence in every jurisdiction, or realized impact."}