Palaeo sea-level and ice-sheet databases : problems, strategies and perspectives.

Sea-level and ice-sheet databases have driven numerous advances in understanding the Earth system. We describe the challenges and offer best strategies that can be adopted to build self-consistent and standardised databases of geological and geochemical information used to archive palaeo-sea-levels...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Climate of the Past
Main Authors: Düsterhus, A., Rovere, A., Carlson, A.E., Horton, B.P., Klemann, V., Tarasov, L., Barlow, N.L.M., Bradwell, T., Clark, J., Dutton, A., Gehrels, W.R., Hibbert, F.D., Hijma, M.P., Khan, N., Kopp, R.E., Sivan, D., Törnqvist, T.E.
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:unknown
Published: Copernicus Publications 2016
Subjects:
Ice Sheet
Online Access:http://dro.dur.ac.uk/18591/
http://dro.dur.ac.uk/18591/1/18591.pdf
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-12-911-2016
Description
Summary:Sea-level and ice-sheet databases have driven numerous advances in understanding the Earth system. We describe the challenges and offer best strategies that can be adopted to build self-consistent and standardised databases of geological and geochemical information used to archive palaeo-sea-levels and palaeo-ice-sheets. There are three phases in the development of a database: (i) measurement, (ii) interpretation, and (iii) database creation. Measurement should include the objective description of the position and age of a sample, description of associated geological features, and quantification of uncertainties. Interpretation of the sample may have a subjective component, but it should always include uncertainties and alternative or contrasting interpretations, with any exclusion of existing interpretations requiring a full justification. During the creation of a database, an approach based on accessibility, transparency, trust, availability, continuity, completeness, and communication of content (ATTAC3) must be adopted. It is essential to consider the community that creates and benefits from a database. We conclude that funding agencies should not only consider the creation of original data in specific research-question-oriented projects, but also include the possibility of using part of the funding for IT-related and database creation tasks, which are essential to guarantee accessibility and maintenance of the collected data.

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