It’s not just meteorites that cause database complications – building stone samples are worse.

Location of building ………   Location of source (e.g. quarry) (if known)

“Geological age” of the building stone …………  Historical age of the building………Date of sampling

J

Mike

Thanks Rachel. I’m not sure if my previous message came through or not as your message below is a reply to an earlier thread. I see your point below and this was why I questioned at the meeting the process of trying to shoehorn us all into agreeing a single standard. I would still question the use of “Geological Age” as this has a specific meaning in some standards (I mentioned Gradstein and Ogg before but IUGS is also relevant). Presumably LS record types will be able to have this field un-populated? Why not have two “age” fields to account for Palaeontological and Mineralogical collection types? I would bring in another issue here in that Lithostratigraphic terms are not specifically age relevant. Ie there is a difference between a Chronostratigraphic term that implies a period in time and a Lithostratigraphic term that relates to the relative position of the rock units in stratigraphy. How about “Mineralogical Age” and “Palaeontological Stratigraphy” or simply “Stratigraphy”?

Hope that makes sense. All the best, Giles

I  proposed the term "Geological Age" at the MIDS meeting as a compromise  because "stratigraphy" (chrono- or  strat-) is simply not used in many earth science disciplines - namely the fields of  igneous and metamorphic petrology, mineralogy and meteoritics and much of economic geology.  There is a reason you will find stratigraphy in paleontology databases but not in the databases for disciplines mentioned above such as mindat, earthchem etc

As Mike has pointed out "Geological age" is broad enough to accommodate a range of time terms. It can accommodate a stratigraphic age, if  your collections have those data or find them useful. However, it can also accommodate the kinds of ages that are  found in the other type of geological collections, such as structural age, measured age, fall or find date. MIDS information elements need to be practical to use to be useful, therefore it is important that are relevant to the kind of data we actually have in our diverse collections. 

A handicap CETAF-ESG faces in trying to represent the diverse world of Earth Sciences, is that there are very few members who work with other (esp non bio/paleontologically) branches of geology so far. This is partially due to the biological focus of CETAF of course. It is therefore easy to misrepresent the data, users, and needs of these communities.  MIDS terms need to be broad enough to encompass data used by the full range of geo-communities , therefore I think Geological Age remains a more sensible term to use.

Rachel

I agre with the chronostratigraphic age that is more precise term.

On the other hand, what other age would be considered?

Best wishe

Jiri

Dear ESG members, 

I am writing to seek advice on the use of terminology in the Minimum Information about a Digital Specimen standard. The working group on MIDS is close to finalizing MIDS level 2. 

For a specimen to be classified as MIDS level 2 it needs have some basic information elements associated with it in a database.

For Earth Science collections this includes Age. The term that they have used to describe this information element is ‘geological age’ but I would like to confirm with you which is the correct term ‘Geological age’ or ‘Chronostratigraphic age’?

I consider ‘Chronostratigraphic age’ more encompassing and is relevant to all types of Earth Science Specimens. Plus, I consider ‘geological age’ to be defined as the lowest rank unit (stages) in the geological timescale.  It  may not be possible to allocate specimens to the high resolution of stage or absolute age but rather only allocated at series/Epoch or even more broadly - period.

Please provide your thoughts so this can be finalized. 

Thank you in advance

Kind regards 

Laura 

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