THE NEOTOMA PALEOECOLOGY DATABASE: REPRESENTATIONS OF GEOLOGICAL TIME AND GEOCHRONOLOGICAL DATA HOLDINGS

The Neotoma Paleoecology Database supports global change research at the intersection of geology and ecology by providing a high-quality, community-curated data repository for paleoecological data. These data are widely used to study biological responses and feedbacks to past environmental change at local to global scales. The Neotoma data model is flexible and stores various kinds of fossil, biogeochemical, or physical variables measured from sedimentary archives. Neotoma now holds >3.5 million observations, >16,000 datasets, and >8,500 sites, and includes fossil pollen, vertebrates, diatoms, ostracodes, macroinvertebrates, plant macrofossils, insects, testate amoebae, organic biomarkers, stable isotopes, and geochronologies.

Because accurate and precise chronologies are central to eco-evolutionary inference, Neotoma stores extensive geochronological information and has become one of the largest structured databases of radiocarbon dates, with 16,255 radiocarbon dates (out of 17,497 stored age controls) as of July 2017. Neotoma stores time information separately as age controls, relative ages, age-depth models, and chronologies, using definitions developed by Grimm et al. (2014). Radiocarbon dates are preferentially stored in original radiocarbon years. Relative ages stored by Neotoma include Marine Isotope Stages, Heinrich stadials, geomagnetic chrons, archaeological periods, and North American land mammal ages. Age-depth models are stored separately and can be updated as new age controls are added, calibrations improve, or new age-depth models are developed. Geochronological data can be readily retrieved in multiple ways, including the Explorer map-based interface, a RESTful Application Programming Interface, the neotoma R package, and digital object identifiers. Neotoma is partnering with EarthRates to identify and develop cross-cutting geoscientific research priorities and the scientific infrastructure to support those priorities. Neotoma is beginning a new partnership with the GeoChronAPI project, led by Brad Singer and supported by NSF-EarthCube, to develop APIs that will allow individual geochronology labs will post data and metadata about dates to their websites, for use by Neotoma and other interested third-party users of geochronological data.