Identification

Title

The Paleoenvironmental Standard Terms (PaST) thesaurus: Standardizing heterogeneous variables in paleoscience

Abstract

Paleoscience data are extremely heterogeneous; hundreds of different types of measurements and reconstructions are routinely made by scientists on a variety of types of physical samples. This heterogeneity is one of the biggest barriers to finding paleoclimatic records, to building large-scale data products, and to the use of paleoscience data beyond the community of specialists. Here, we document the Paleoenvironmental Standard Terms (PaST) thesaurus, the first authoritative vocabulary of standardized variable names for paleoclimatic and paleoenvironmental data developed in a formal knowledge organization structure. This structure is designed to improve data set discovery, support automated processing of data, and provide connectivity to other vocabularies. PaST is now used operationally at the World Data Service for Paleoclimatology (WDS-Paleo), one of the largest repositories of paleoscience information. Terms from the PaST thesaurus standardize a broad array of paleoenvironmental and paleoclimatic measured and inferred variables, providing enough detail for accurate and precise data discovery and thereby promoting data reuse. We describe the main design decisions and features of the thesaurus, the governance structure for ongoing maintenance, and WDS-Paleo services that now employ PaST. These services include an advanced search by variable name, an interface for thesaurus navigation, and a machine-readable representation in the Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS) standard. This overview is designed for developers of thesauri, data contributors, and users of the WDS-Paleo, and serves as a building block for future efforts within the broader paleoscience community to improve how data are described for long-term findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7bg2s9c

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2021-06-01T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact