GSA Data Policy for Publications

(Approved February 2014 by the GSA Publications Committee; updated August 2021.)

The Geological Society of America (GSA) supports the preservation of geoscience data for the public good and urges public and private-sector organizations and individuals to routinely catalog, preserve, and make their data widely accessible. (See GSA’s Position Statements on Open Data Access and Geoscience Data Preservation.)

All authors are required to permanently archive new data they use in papers published with GSA in trusted repositories that:

  • Maintain open access to data
  • Provide long-term preservation
  • Use persistent and unique identifiers
  • Register metadata
  • Include quality assurance

GSA requires authors to follow established community standards for archiving specific types of data (see, for example, Deines et al., 2003; Renne et al., 2009; Schmitz, 2012, for standards of archiving radiogenic isotope data; see Schaen et al., 2021, for information on reporting 40Ar/39Ar geochronologic data).

GSA also encourages placement of important geoscience samples in long-term and well-documented repositories or collections, such as at museums, geological surveys, or universities.

References Cited

Deines, P., Goldstein, S.L., Oelkers, E.H., Rudnick, R.L., Walter, L.M., 2003, Standards for publication of isotope ratio and chemical data in Chemical Geology: Chemical Geology, v. 202, no. 1–2, p. 1–4, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemgeo.2003.08.003 (www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0009254103002444).

Renne, P.R., Deino, A.L., Hames, W.E., Heizler, M.T., Hemming, S.R., Hodges, K.V., Koppers, A.A.P., Mark, D.F., Morgan, L.E., Phillips, D., Singer, B.S., Turrin, B.D., Villa, I.M., Villeneuve, M., and Wijbrans, J.R., 2009, Data reporting norms for 40Ar/39Ar geochronology: Quaternary Geochronology, v. 4, no. 5, p. 346–352, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quageo.2009.06.005 (www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1871101409000946).

Schaen, A.J., Jicha, B.R., Hodges, K.V., and 38 others, 2021, Interpreting and reporting 40Ar/39Ar geochronologic data: Geological Society of America Bulletin, v. 133, p. 461–487, https://doi.org/10.1130/B35560.1

Schmitz, M., 2012, Radiogenic Isotope Geochronology, in Gradstein, F.M., Ogg, G., and Schmitz, M., The Geologic Time Scale 2012: Elsevier, p. 115–126, https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-444-59425-9.00006-8.

Example Data Repositories

GSA will facilitate cross-referencing of data between published papers and outside repositories via use of DOI (Digital Object Identifier; www.doi.org) numbers whenever possible. The following list of repositories is provided as a resource and should not be considered a definitive list. Additional repositories can be located here: https://repositoryfinder.datacite.org/. GSA cannot guarantee the longevity of the repositories listed here, nor can it police any use or misuse of the data housed in them.

Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC)
www.ccdc.cam.ac.uk/pages/Home.aspx

IEDA (Integrated Earth Data Applications) is a partnership between EarthChem and the Marine Geoscience Data System.
www.iedadata.org

EarthChem (www.earthchem.org) provides repository services for the following data types: compositional geochemistry (elemental, isotopic); geochronology; petrography (modal compositions, sample descriptions); geochemical synthesis datasets; experimental datasets (e.g., kinetics data); sample metadata; technical reports; software tools (e.g., MATLAB® code, EXCEL® macros, etc.); images (photos, schematics, maps, etc.).

EarthChem integrated databases:


Marine Geoscience Data System (www.marine-geo.org/index.php) includes:


CSIRO Data Access Portal (https://data.csiro.au/dap/home?execution=e1s1)

Natural Environment Research Council (www.nerc.ac.uk/research/sites/data/doi.asp). Site includes links to:

  • British Atmospheric Data Centre (BADC; http://badc.nerc.ac.uk/home)
  • NERC Earth Observation Data Centre (NEODC)
  • UK Solar System Data Centre (UKSSDC)
  • British Oceanographic Data Centre (BODC)
  • Environmental Information Data Centre (EIDC)
  • National Geoscience Data Centre (NGDC)
  • Polar Data Centre (PDC)
  • OpenGeoscience (https://www.bgs.ac.uk/opengeoscience, NERC and BGS)

 

Oak Ridge National Laboratory Distributed Active Archive Center (http://daac.ornl.gov)

PANGAEA (www.pangaea.de/about)

U.S. Geological Survey Coastal and Marine Geoscience Data System: http://cmgds.marine.usgs.gov

Further Reading and Resources

GSA Position Statement “Open Data Access”

GSA Position Statement “Geoscience Data Preservation”

Geoscience Data Journal

National Information Standards Organization

National Science Foundation’s Data Management & Sharing Frequently Asked Questions