PALEOBOTANICAL DATA FROM THE USGS/NOAA NORTH AMERICAN PACKRAT MIDDEN DATABASE, VERSION 5: PRIMARY DATA, QUALITY-ASSESSED STANDARDIZED DATA, AND INFORMATION ON SAMPLE CLIMATIC AND ECOLOGICAL CONTEXT

For more than 20 years the U.S. Geological Survey has compiled and maintained a database of fossil plant materials collected from packrat middens found throughout the arid regions of western North America, from British Columbia to northern Mexico. Since 1998, the USGS/NOAA North American Packrat Midden Database has provided a unique online accessible source of paleobotanical data to researchers, educators, and students exploring a variety of paleoenvironmental questions. An updated edition (version 5) of the online Packrat Midden Database (available in 2019, https://geochange.er.usgs.gov/midden/) will also be published in the form of a queryable database, alongside individual downloadable data tables. This dataset is comprised of midden data obtained from 335 reports published between 1964 and 2016. As in versions 1-4, version 5 includes primary published data from packrat midden analyses including, location and elevation data for 3,298 fossil and modern midden samples, 3,805 radiocarbon ages, plant macrofossil assemblage lists and relative abundance data for 1,815 fossil plant taxa. Version 5 also continues to provide quality-assessed standardized plant macrofossil presence-absence data interpreted from the original published abundance data. New data available in version 5 are; 1) interpolated modern climate parameters and ecological data generated for most midden sites, 2) improved locality coordinates and elevations important for generating past climate reconstructions, 3) calibrated ages, 4) best age assessments for assemblages with multiple ages, 5) currently accepted nomenclatural synonyms for fossil taxa and 6) plant functional type data associated with each fossil taxon. All data are provided in a queryable MS Access database consisting of joined tables within which, each unique data element is linked to specific source references.