Event Ordering Reasoning Ontology Applied to Petrology and Geological Modelling

The inference of temporal information from past event occurrences is relevant in several applications for geological domains. In such applications, the order in which events have happened is imprinted in the domain as visualspatial relations among its elements. The interpretation of the relative ordering in which events have occurred is essential for understanding the geological evolution in different scales of observation and for various kinds of objects, as in Petrology and Geological Modelling. From the analysis of the cognitive abilities of experts in these domains we propose an ontology for event ordering reasoning within domains whose elements have been modified by past events. We show that the Event Ontology can work as a pattern for domain conceptualization to be applied in distinct domains. It can be used to specify the sequence order of diagenetic paragenesis. It can also be operative for automatic reconstruction of geological surface assemblages.