T77 Developments in Pollen Calibration and Quantitative Reconstruction of Past Vegetation Cover (Posters)

THE GLOBAL POLLEN DATABASE

Paper number: T77-13
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 1:30 PM – 4:30 PM

Authors

Abstract

The Global Pollen Database (GPD) contains Quaternary pollen data from the around the world, including the Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Indo-Pacific region. The objective of the GPD is to assemble pollen data from Quaternary deposits and modern surface samples into a relational database and to make these data freely available to the scientific community. The database contains original pollen counts, radiocarbon dates, site data, bibliographic data, researcher information, and other relevant data.

New data are organized, verified, and made available by various regional data cooperatives. The GPD began with the development in 1990 of the independent but compatible North American and European Pollen Databases (NAPD and EPD). The GPD was conceived in 1994 with the development of the Latin American Pollen Database, which was integrated with NAPD from the outset. In 2003, the European data were integrated into the GPD. The African Pollen Database is currently independent, but data from it will be merged with the GPD in the future.

The database makes an important distinction between archival data and research data. Archival tables store the count data, radiocarbon dates as reported by the radiocarbon laboratories, and other basic data not expected to change, except to add missing information or correct errors. Research tables store data that are derived by manipulation of the archival tables and are of an interpretive or subjective nature. Probably the most important of the research tables are those containing age models and chronologies, including the assignment of an age to each pollen sample.

The GPD is available from the World Data Center for Paleoclimatology, which is housed at the Paleoclimatology Branch of the National Climatic Data Center in Boulder, Colorado. In addition to the database tables themselves, the data are available in several site-file formats via the World Wide Web (http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pollen.html). The web site features a search engine and map interface (WebMapper) for locating data and links to various pollen database cooperatives.