Abstract. We present a database of cosmogenic radionuclide and luminescence measurements
in fluvial sediment. With support from the Australian National Data Service
(ANDS) we have built infrastructure for hosting and maintaining the data at
the University of Wollongong and making this available to the research
community via an Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC)-compliant web service. The
cosmogenic radionuclide (CRN) part of the database consists of 10Be
and 26Al measurements in modern fluvial sediment samples from
across the globe, along with ancillary geospatial vector and raster layers,
including sample site, basin outline, digital elevation model, gradient
raster, flow-direction and flow-accumulation rasters, atmospheric pressure
raster, and CRN production scaling and topographic shielding factor rasters.
Sample metadata are comprehensive and include all necessary information for
the recalculation of denudation rates using CAIRN, an open-source
program for calculating
basin-wide denudation rates from 10Be and 26Al data.
Further all data have been recalculated and harmonised using the same
program. The luminescence part of the database consists of
thermoluminescence (TL) and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL)
measurements in fluvial sediment samples from stratigraphic sections and
sediment cores from across the Australian continent and includes ancillary
vector and raster geospatial data. The database can be interrogated and
downloaded via a custom-built web map service. More advanced interrogation
and exporting to various data formats, including the ESRI Shapefile and
Google Earth's KML, is also possible via the Web Feature Service (WFS)
capability running on the OCTOPUS server. Use of open standards also ensures
that data layers are visible to other OGC-compliant data-sharing services.
OCTOPUS and its associated data curation framework provide the opportunity
for researchers to reuse previously published but otherwise unusable CRN and
luminescence data. This delivers the potential to harness old but valuable
data that would otherwise be lost to the research community. OCTOPUS can be
accessed at https://earth.uow.edu.au (last access: 28 November 2018).
The individual data collections can also be accessed via the following DOIs:
https://doi.org/10.4225/48/5a8367feac9b2 (CRN International),
https://doi.org/10.4225/48/5a836cdfac9b5 (CRN Australia), and
https://doi.org/10.4225/48/5a836db1ac9b6 (OSL & TL Australia).
sharing services. Thus, OCTOPUS will turn data that was previously invisible to those not within the CRN and luminescence research communities into a findable resource. This aspect is of importance to industry or local government who are yet to 15 discover the value of geochronological data in, amongst others, placing human impacts on the environment into context. The availability of the repository and its associated data curation framework will provide the opportunity for researchers to store, curate, recalculate and re-use previously published but otherwise unusable CRN and luminescence data. This delivers the potential to harness old but valuable data that would otherwise be 'lost' to the research community. The streamlined repository and transparent data re-analysis framework will also reduce research time and avoid duplication of effort, which will be highly 20 attractive to other researchers. OCTOPUS can be accessed at https://earth.uow.edu.au. The data collections can also be ac-1 Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss., https://doi
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.