Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-m8qmq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T00:21:42.721Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A New Attempt to Establish the International Radiocarbon Soils Database (IRSDB)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2016

Peter Becker-Heidmann  and
Pascal Heidmann
Peter Becker-Heidmann*
Affiliation:
University of Hamburg, Department of Geosciences, Hamburg, Germany
Pascal Heidmann
Affiliation:
Reinbek, Germany
*
Corresponding author. Email: p.becker-heidmann@uni-hamburg.de
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Twenty years after the first International Radiocarbon Database Workshop, and 13 yr after the setup of a preliminary structure for a worldwide database on 14C dates of soils, sound reasons and excuses for not establishing a real and globally accessible database have diminished. Climate change itself is widely accepted as reality now, and the strong demand of the modeling community for reliable data of the carbon pool—especially in soils—has been maintained. With the steadily increasing capacity of 14C dating facilities, these data can be and are produced. Nevertheless, they still cannot be accessed easily and equally enough. Now, decreased costs of hardware and recent developments of the internet enable the IRSDB to be implemented, in a joint effort. As a seed, a test server has been set up, with open-source software, housing the database in alpha-stage, a web interface, and a community portal. Thus, the development of the design as well as the data input of the database is done in close collaboration of the users of the database, the laboratories, soil scientists, archaeologists, modelers, other scientists, and interested laypersons. In order to guarantee the longtime independence of the availability and usability of the database from vendors or changing standards, only widely used open-source software and open standards are used. Therefore, the development of plug-ins for data input from laboratory databases or output to different required formats as well as interfaces to GIS and other software is possible. A version control system takes care of the integrity of the data.

Type
Soils and Sediments
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 52 , Issue 3: 20th Int. Radiocarbon Conference Proceedings , 2010 , pp. 1405 - 1410
Copyright
Copyright © 2010 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

References

Becker-Heidmann, P. 1996. Requirements for an international radiocarbon soils database. Radiocarbon 38(2):177–80.Google Scholar
Becker-Heidmann, P, Scharpenseel, HW, Wiechmann, H. 1996. Hamburg radiocarbon thin layer soils database. Radiocarbon 38(2):295–345.Google Scholar
Berners-Lee, T, Cailliau, R. 1990. WorldWideWeb: Proposal for a hypertext project [WWW document]. URL: http://www.w3.org/Proposal.html. Accessed 27 July 2009.Google Scholar
Englesman, FMR, Taayke, E, Mook, WG. 1986. Groningen 14C database. Radiocarbon 28(2A):788–96.Google Scholar
Kalin, RM, Long, A. 1989. Radiocarbon data base: Q & A-an artificial intelligence database file management program. Radiocarbon 31(1):1–6.Google Scholar
Kra, R. 1988. Updating the past: the establishment of the International Radiocarbon Data Base. American Antiquity 53(1):118–25.Google Scholar
Lavell, C, Otlet, RL, Walker, AJ. 1992. The CBA/RCD computer database of radiocarbon dated sites. Antiquity 66(253):969–74.Google Scholar
Michczyński, A, Pazdur, MF. 1989. Local microcomputer database for radiocarbon dates. Zeszyty Naukowe Politechniki Slaskiej, Seria Matematyka-Fizyka, z.61. Geochronometria 6:27–35.Google Scholar
Moffett, JC, Webb, RE. 1983. Database management systems, radiocarbon and archaeology. Radiocarbon 25(2):667–8.Google Scholar
O'Reilly, T. 2005. What Is Web 2.0? Design patterns and business models for the next generation of software [WWW document]. URL: http://oreilly.com/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html. Accessed 27 July 2009.Google Scholar
Raymond, ES. 1998. Goodbye, “free software”, hello, “open source” [WWW document]. URL: http://www.catb.org/∼esr/open-source.html. Accessed 27 July 2009.Google Scholar
Scharpenseel, HW, Becker-Heidmann, P. 1992. Twenty-five years radiocarbon dating of soils: paradigm of erring and learning. Radiocarbon 34(3):541–9.Google Scholar
Scharpenseel, HW, Pietig, F, Schiffman, H, Becker-Heidmann, P. 1996. Radiocarbon dating of soils: database contribution by Bonn and Hamburg. Radiocarbon 38(2):277–93.Google Scholar
Tans, PP, Fung, IY, Takahashi, T. 1990. Observational contrains on the global atmospheric CO2 budget. Science 247(4949):1431–8.Google Scholar