Addressing Conflicting Cognitive Models in Collaborative E-Research Since a deep analysis of all of them is impossible, we will focus on geophysics, which is a particu- larly rich environment from the point of view of blurred facts and clashing visions, where most of the research is carried out in multidisciplinary teams and where a lively community is starting to bridge intra-disciplinary "tribal areas" and to demand proper technological support for its col- laborative activities. Outline of the Chapter In this chapter, we start by analysing the reasons and the conditions for the above mentioned dynamics to emerge. We describe what exploration geophysics is, and analyse the peculiarities of reasoning in this field. We will show that it is primarily an abductive process mirrored in a complex, context-dependent, connotative coding system. Starting from the fact that abductive reason- since the projection of knowledge by scientists, in the designated community, is political and thus can create a lot of tension. The strategy we propose to overcome these issues pertains to pragmatics, in the sense that it is intended to acknowledge the cultural and personal factors each partner brings into the collaboration and is based on the idea that meaning should remain a flexible and contingent representation of possibly divergent views. This can be achieved through the introduction of boundary objects (Star & Griesemer, 1989) that are weakly structured in common use while strongly structured in individual use. In our experience, these are very effective in coordinating collaborative work, creat- ing a map of activities, tasks, concepts or events that can be used to drive through the collaborative space in order to locate information. The col- laborative work itself, populating this space with information, will build the contingent meaning of the represented features. We report on the use of