The world is buzzing with the hum of servers containing terabytes of the world's collective datasets. And the geosciences are no different. Geoscientists are awash in data like never before. The challenge now for the geoscience community is how to best integrate disparate datasets for communal use and establish uniform standards for data entry. Now, communities of computer scientists and geoscientists are coming together to tackle the challenge of how best to integrate the wealth of data describing the earth system and to encourage geoscientists to dust off their personal collections for integration into the cumulative data cloud.

AGI's GeoSpectrum brings you the stories of the geoscience profession from stories about public safety and the geosciences by creating contamination maps of lead distribution in New Orleans, charitable drilling for water in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to how Boy Scouts at the 2013 Jamboree were introduced to mining all in the 2013 summer edition just published at http://www.agiweb.org/geospectrum/

Each year, as hurricanes hit U.S. coastlines, scientists study them to improve forecasts critical for saving lives and property. Last year, unmanned aircraft from NASA flew into the biggest storms as part of a project to improve hurricane forecasts by 50 percent over the next 10 years. EARTH Magazine reports in the August issue, three projects in particular - the Hurricane Forecast Improvement Program, NASA's 2010 Genesis and Rapid Intensification Project Field Experiment and its replacement, the Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel Project - may be responsible for a 20 percent error reduction in the hurricane track and intensity forecasts.

Few destinations capture the imagination like Cuba; a forbidden fruit to U.S. citizens. Recently, scientists from the U.S.-based Association for Women Geoscientists travelled there to explore its geology and culture. The expedition is chronicled in the August issue of EARTH Magazine. While Cuba is an intriguing destination as an actor on the global political stage, its geological history captures events that tell scientists even more about the history of the planet.

The American Geosciences Institute (AGI) is now accepting advance orders for the Earth Science Week 2013 Toolkit. The Toolkit contains educational materials for all ages that correspond to this year's event theme, "Mapping Our World."

EARTH Magazine explores the ritual of field camp as geoscientists' rite of passage for thousands of U.S. college students. Geology field camps date back to the days of great explorers and naturalists like John Muir and his contemporaries. Now young men and women gear up and pack out to geologically unique locations nationwide. Traditional skill sets are now taught alongside relevant technology to keep students workforce-ready.

The U.S. Geological Survey is hosting the inaugural Best Student Geologic Map Competition. This competition is open to university-level students and entries will be judged at the 125th Annual Geological Society of America Meeting held in Denver, CO from October 27th through 30th 2013. A judging panel will select three winners during a special session convened on October 29th, 2013. The special session will double as a networking hour for students to share their experiences and techniques.

One of the greatest controversies in science is what's underneath the Yellowstone supervolcano. The controversy surrounds a unique relationship between a mantle plume (like the one that powers Hawaiian volcanoes) and the subduction zone off the Washington-Oregon coast. Cutting-edge research using a common kitchen ingredient is explored in the latest issue of EARTH Magazine.

Scientists have recently confirmed the existence of an impact crater buried below the town of Decorah, Iowa. Scientists first discovered what they thought resembled a crater in 2008, but now it has been corroborated by an airborne geophysical survey and hydrology surveys. Scientists estimate the diameter of the crater at 5.5 kilometers wide, nearly five times the size of the Barringer Meteor Crater in Arizona.

Of all the water on Earth, less than 3 percent is available for human use, and as climates change and populations boom, the strategies used to extract it will become increasingly complex. With increasing demand, policymakers, scientists and leaders must recognize the energy-water nexus. The energy-water nexus describes an interdependent relationship that exists between availability of water resources and the energy required to obtain, distribute and utilize them. The way we manage the delicate relationship between energy and water will have major implications for the future of both critical resources, as EARTH explores in the July issue.