Ontological Representation of Electrical Geophysical Methods

Abstract

AYORINDE, Ibiyinka Temilola
temiayorinde@yahoo.com
Department of Computer Science, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria.
Abstract
Geophysical methods are tools that apply principles of the geophysical sciences to obtain data from the earth
surface. From the literature, these methods are rarely formalised. Due to the large datasets peculiar to geosciences in
data interpretation, ontologies have been found to be a better means of representing knowledge in the field. Hence,
this research work builds an ontology that formalises electrical geophysical methods. The domain concepts were
gathered through knowledge elicitation. Facts, rules and relationships between the various concepts of electrical
geophysical methods were formalised using description logic (DL). Protégé 5.0, an ontology editor was used to
implement the system and competency questions in form of simple queries were used to test the efficiency of the
ontology. The competency question “Which electrical method is naturally generated?” with the axiom: SPM ?
ElectricalMethod ? ?Occurence. Natural ? ?measures. BackgroundPotential produces the result “Self-
potential method” as the main class and “Electrical method” as its super class. This ontology can be used as a
training tool for geophysicists and as a shared representation for researchers in the field.