Earth Science collections, like Life Science collections, have an important role in biodiversity research as they provide evidence for the evolutionary history of organisms, as well as helping to understand the impacts of natural hazards, disasters, and environmental and climate change.

The general aim of this symposium is to discuss and present the importance of Earth Science collections in biodiversity research and other cross-disciplinary subjects. The symposium is related to the implementation of metadata standards, publication of collection data via data portals, tools for mapping the data and conducting quality checks discussed at the TDWG Paleo Interest Group meeting.

The symposium will be open for talks related to Earth Science collections and research with special focus on the following topics:

- The role and implementation of fossil taxa in the taxonomic backbone (e.g. Catalogue of Life) and the role of geochemical data in related platforms.

- Defining minimal, optimal and full requirements for data records in digitised Earth Science collections.

- Implementation and usage of existing metadata standards and controlled vocabularies for Earth Science collections.

- Data portals, search and presentation platforms for Earth Science collections access, research and outreach.