Towards OWL-based Knowledge Representation in Petrology
  This paper presents our work on development of OWL-driven systems for formal
representation and reasoning about terminological knowledge and facts in
petrology. The long-term aim of our project is to provide solid foundations for
a large-scale integration of various kinds of knowledge, including basic terms,
rock classification algorithms, findings and reports. We describe three steps
we have taken towards that goal here. First, we develop a semi-automated
procedure for transforming a database of igneous rock samples to texts in a
controlled natural language (CNL), and then a collection of OWL ontologies.
Second, we create an OWL ontology of important petrology terms currently
described in natural language thesauri. We describe a prototype of a tool for
collecting definitions from domain experts. Third, we present an approach to
formalization of current industrial standards for classification of rock
samples, which requires linear equations in OWL 2. In conclusion, we discuss a
range of opportunities arising from the use of semantic technologies in
petrology and outline the future work in this area.
