Representing and reasoning with intervals

Geologists around the world often specify numerically measured information such as age or speed with non-numerical words such as "Jurassic" or "fast" rather than actual numerical values or ranges of numerical values. These qualitative descriptions, which may adhere to different standards, can be applied at different levels of detail or abstraction. This presents difficulties in building knowledge-based systems that have to compare temporally and spatially related information such as geological age or landslide movement rates. This paper discusses the representation of intervals and the reasoning required when comparing interval information. It proposes a format, which can work with different interval domains, for representing intervals based on a current software system developed for qualitative probabilistic matching. This is a necessary first step in being able to reason with various interval specification standards that have evolved in different parts of the world. Not only can this framework be used in the geological domain, such as mineral exploration and geological hazard evaluation, but it can also be used for intervallic reasoning in other scientific disciplines.