BROADENING ACCESS TO VOLCANIC DATASETS FROM EAST AFRICA

Tephrochronology can be used to synchronize and date sedimentary archives important for a wide range of geologic problems. For disparate disciplines to discover and fully utilize the growing number of available volcanic datasets from the East African Rift (EAR), data compilation and infrastructural efforts were needed. The East African Rift Tephra Database (EARThD) was funded by NSF to fulfill that need: to compile, integrate, standardize, and enhance access to published papers containing geochemical and geochronological data from tephra deposits collected in eastern Africa. Of particular importance to these efforts is prioritizing the availability and discoverability of data in alignment with current FAIR data reporting practices.

In addition to the PIs, our team included efforts from numerous undergraduate (16) and graduate (2) students, and received support from multiple data managers and coders at Earth Data Alliance (IEDA), a NSF-supported community-based data facility. Undergraduate and graduate students were trained in spreadsheet data entry and management, data mining, scientific paper comprehension, and in East African tephrochronology. In collaboration with IEDA, we supported the expansion of their data access, queries, and download capabilities to better serve the needs of the geochemical community. Over 400 published scientific papers containing tephra data have been entered into spreadsheets compatible with the IEDA Petrological Database (PetDB). Currently, data from 298 papers are available for download on the EarthChem website. Here, we briefly demonstrate our data entry process and focus on end user functionality locating, retrieving, and utilizing EARThD tephra datasets. These efforts preserve access to (digital) geochemical data for posterity, fulfilling a data integration role needed to support the growing EAR tephra record and the increasingly complex and multidisciplinary research questions being studied.