Curation and Analysis of Global Sedimentary Geochemical Data to Inform Earth History

Large datasets increasingly provide critical insights into crustal and surface processes on Earth. These data come in the form of published contributed observations, which often include associated metadata. Even best-case scenario a carefully curated dataset, it may be non-trivial to extract meaningful analyses from such compilations, choices made with respect filtering, resampling, averaging can affect resulting trends any interpretation(s) thereof. As result, thorough understanding how digest, process, analyze large compilations is required. Here, we present generalizable workflow developed using Sedimentary Geochemistry Paleoenvironments Project database. We demonstrate effects filtering weighted resampling Al2O3 U contents, two representative geochemical components interest sedimentary geochemistry (one major one trace element, respectively). Through our analyses, highlight several methodological challenges “bigger data” approach Earth science. suggest that, slight modifications workflow, researchers confidently use collections observations gain new that have shaped Earth’s environments.