DataONE (Observation Network Earth) ensures the preservation and access to earth observation data spanning broad science disciplines to enable advances in science and education. For example, data on the sources and sinks of greenhouse gases can facilitate advances in climate change science and modeling, while data on land use patterns can facilitate scientific understanding of human-environment interactions at local and regional scales. Understanding the conditions under which an invasive species colonizes a new area can be used to forecast the spread of that invasive species, and understanding disturbance effects on terrestrial ecosystems allows better forecasts of the responses of terrestrial ecosystems to agricultural and range management. In addition, earth observation data enables citizens to understand their neighborhood's ecosystem through various citizen science initiatives. Understanding the earth's living and nonliving systems requires access to long time series of data spanning environmental science disciplines. DataONE will preserve and provide access to those data.