The information system PANGAEA - Network for Geological and Environmental Data (http://www.pangaea.de) is archiving and distributing data related to earth science research. The archive can be seen as a public 'library' making published data available to the scientific community by use of the Internet. Analytical data are stored in a relational database in a consistent format with their related meta-information following international standards and protocols. Data and information of any type (graphics, maps, numbers, photos, text) can be georeferenced in space and/or time, also allowing the extraction of individually configured subsets. PANGAEA is operated by AWI and MARUM on a long-term perspective and funding, both institutes providing the technical infrastructure for the system operation including support for data management in projects and for individual scientists. The use of PANGAEA with examples from different fields of the geosciences as archived from terrestrial and marine research is presented.